Ammonia exposure: As urine and feces build up in the litter box, they can start to release ammonia. This toxic gas can cause all sorts of unpleasant symptoms, including headaches, asthma attacks, and, if left unchecked, pneumonia. Ammonia can stress your immune system and be harmful to your health in general.
Cats can harbour the toxoplasmic gondii parasite and excrete it in their feces. If you touch those feces, which you are likely to do when the litter tray is full, you could get infected. Most people don't show any symptoms, but a few people get symptoms like the flu.
Dirty litter boxes are full of bacteria that are not only harmful to cats but to humans as well. Here are a few parasites that could be crawling in your cat's litterbox.
Litter boxes that aren't cleaned regularly enough can contain buildups of urine and feces, resulting in dangerous ammonia fumes. Ammonia, which is a toxic gas, can cause serious breathing issues and other problems.
Once infected, cats then begin to excrete the oocysts for a median of eight days, dropping as many as 810 million of them in their poop. Those oocysts are tough to kill, too, and can remain viable for at least a year and a half under certain conditions.
If cat litter boxes are not regularly cleaned, the urine and feces accumulate and ammonia fumes build up. Ammonia is a toxic gas made from a combination of nitrogen and hydrogen. Living in an atmosphere filled with these ammonia fumes can cause a great deal of respiratory discomfort and problems.
Cats can transmit Toxoplasma to people through their feces, but humans most commonly become infected by eating undercooked or raw meat, or by inadvertently consuming contaminated soil on unwashed or undercooked vegetables. The symptoms of toxoplasmosis include flu-like muscle aches and fever, and headache.
You may have heard that cat feces can carry the infection toxoplasmosis. This infection is only found in cats who go outdoors and hunt prey, such as mice and other rodents.
It can expose you to ammonia causing severe headache, Lung infections caused by breathing in foul-smelling, dusty cat litter. It can worsen symptoms of asthma. It can cause bronchitis.
If you have more than one cat, it may be best to change the cat litter more often, every 2-3 weeks. If you use a non-clumping litter and have only one cat, changing the litter twice per week is a good guideline. If you have more than one cat, every other day may work better.
Pregnant women and those who have compromised immune systems should be extra careful and consider not being the one to change the litter. I have a cat at home and do not worry about becoming infected with Toxoplasma. Even in a laboratory setting, the chances of infection are quite low.
The problem, however, is that the main ingredient in cat litter is Sodium Bentonite and some of which contain crystalline silica (this includes silica gel cat litter). Research has shown that prolonged exposure to crystalline silica dust may cause silicosis (a fatal lung disease) and bronchitis, and tuberculosis.
Although the risks are small, you could become ill if you contract Toxoplasmosis, worms or you're exposed to too much ammonia. More likely, the noise and smell of your cat doing their business in it will either wake you up or keep you awake when you should be sleeping.
One negative thing that can happen is an overexposure to ammonia, which gets produced as urine and feces accumulates. Ammonia is a toxic gas that can lead to mild problems like headaches or nausea, or something more serious, like pneumonia.
Animal abuse might be a stretch on this. Unless you're going to start abusing your cat for urinating and/or deficating outside their litter boxes. Cats are pretty clean animals. They are notorious for refusing to use a dirty or filthy litter box.
Litter boxes should be scooped at least once or twice a day, and it's even better if you can get to it as soon as your cat has finished his business. There are self-cleaning litter boxes available that use a sensor to tell when a cat has entered and then left the litter box.
Cats can carry many germs in their poop. To stay healthy, take precautions when cleaning a cat's litter box. Change litter boxes daily. Always wash your hands after cleaning the litter box, even if you use a scoop to remove the poop.
In addition, cats kept indoors (that do not hunt prey or are not fed raw meat) are not likely to be infected with Toxoplasma.
Since oocysts are transmitted by ingestion, in order to contract toxoplasmosis, the person would have to make contact with contaminated feces in the litter box and then, without washing their hands, touch their mouth or otherwise transmit the contaminated fecal matter to their digestive system.
Symptoms of toxoplasmosis include fever, swollen glands and muscle aches. Most people who become infected with Toxoplasma have no symptoms. If people develop symptoms, they usually begin 1 to 3 weeks after being exposed to the parasite. Symptoms usually last for 2 to 4 weeks.
Cats that hunt or who are fed raw meat are more likely to carry toxoplasma parasites. You may get infected if you touch your mouth after touching anything that has been in contact with cat feces. This may be gardening or cleaning a litter box.
Toxoplasmosis is usually diagnosed based on a cat's history, signs of illness, and laboratory test results. Measurement of two types of antibodies to T. gondii in the blood, IgG and IgM, can help diagnose toxoplasmosis.
Stomach Bug
A germ called Campylobacter jejuni causes diarrhea, vomiting, and fever—and it can be spread via cat and dog poop. “Bacteria and organisms in feces can get on our hands and, through day-to-day living, can inadvertently get in our mouths,” says Stull.
The prevalence of oocyst shedding in cats is very low (0-1%), even though at least 15-40% of cats have been infected with Toxoplasma at some point. This means very few cats at any one time are actually able to pass their infection on to people.