Plastic balls for my cat

[jma1009]

My plus 10 year old ex-RSPCA rescue cat Benny apparently has kidney disease indicated by recent blood tests.

I was provided with a small bag of very small plastic balls to use in his litter tray in order to obtain a urine test from the vets.

Benny the cat would not use the litter tray whatsoever with this small amount of small plastic balls, and got very upset.

I was thinking that I need a large quantity of bigger plastic balls (pea size) to achieve some success.

Any suggestions?

The vet has intimated that in the absence of such a urine test Benny the cat will have to have a sample taken direct from his bladder, and I would very much wish to avoid this procedure being inflicted upon him.

Benny is a recent addition of 13 months following the death of Mugsy who was killed by a car. Benny is very docile. Unlike Mugsy who would jump up onto the lathe and bench, and would go to sleep in the 5"g LBSCR wagon.

Cheers,

Julian

[weary]

Hello Julian (and Benny!),

You can buy 6mm diameter plastic balls quite easily & cheaply from ebay; 500 for around £4 postage etc., included, though with a bit of searching you can probably find even cheaper especially for larger quantities. You may have to search ++ gun pellets ++ or ++ gun ammo ++ or even +++ catapult +++ and +++ 6mm balls +++ as the plastic balls are used in (air) gun and catapult shooting.
Typical example here.
1000 for a fiver delivered here.

Perhaps these (or similar) will do the job, but even if it is not quite what you are looking for it may give you a lead as to likely sources (gun-shops etc.).

Regards,

Phil

[JonL]

Good luck Julian. I've found myself with four cats after having a much more sensible two, then I had to rescue a kitten from being drowned by a farmer, followed by my fiancee moving in with her cat. So now I'm a crazy cat man like it or not...

Could you layer his normal litter over the top?

[Cro]

Julian,

I showed the wife (she's a vet) and she said you can either get more balls (more sachets of it) or let them do the cystocentesis as she says typically cats actually take this better than having the blood taken for the already done blood test.

Adam

[jma1009]

That is very kind of Phil, Nobby, and Adam to reply. Much appreciated.

Cheers,

Julian

[Midland]

Julian
When I read the title to your thread, I had to ask myself, what is he up to, thank god it is just a piss take, of sorts anyway!!!
D

[silverfox]

Julian
hope it all goes well, and i did have a chuckle, thanks for cheering me up

Ron

[ettingtonliam]

I'm sorry to hear about your cat Julian, and I hope the vet sorts him out. I don't know where the saying 'curiousity killed the cat' came from, all my cats have been hugely suspicious of anything, food, bedding etc which deviate from what they have previously decreed as acceptable, and it comes as no surprise that he doesn't take to any changes in his toilet arrangements.

[Neale]

I'm a member of SMEE, and organise the activities of the Digital Group which is a special-interest group within the Society. We "meet" online a couple of times a month using video-conferencing and one of my cats is a regular attendee - often on my lap, or wandering past the camera showing ears and tail on the screen. Interestingly, since she started making an appearance, a number of other attendees have turned their cameras to show their cats, maybe staring at themselves on screen or just curled up on the keyboard. There's quite a few model-engineering cats out there!