Figure 1.

(a) Percentage of cats shedding feline coronavirus (FCoV) on crossover trial of cat litters A, X and Y in household H. (b) Percentage of FCoV-positive samples on crossover trial of cat litters B, X and Y in household L. Cats in households H and L were sampled on various occasions while using control cat litters A and B (white bars) and test litters X and Y (black and grey bars, respectively). This figure shows that the percentage of cats shedding FCoV was lower on cat litter X when compared with litters A, B or Y in a crossover study involving two households, H and L. It can be seen that the percentage of cats shedding FCoV decreased in both households when cat litter X was introduced, increased when the cat litter was changed from X to Y, then decreased again on litter X in both households. The difference between cat litters X and A was statistically significant (P <0.05), but the difference between X and B was not (P >0.05). Cat litter Y was not significantly different from litters A or B (P >0.05). All of the cat litters were Fuller’s earth based, but cat litter X was formulated to be dust-free and so to track less. The possibility that the reduction in virus shedding was related to summertime, as opposed to the cat litter, could not be excluded