: Cat box smelled like ammonia after I changed brands of litter Cat went in box, came out and urinated on floor. Urine smelled normal no ammonia smell at all. It was the litter that changed the urine smell to ammonia. I

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So ammonia is naturally in cat urine, but the smell is stronger the more concentrated the urine is. The less water in the urine; the more concentrated...

Most litters are made of bentonite clay, silica (crystalline litters) , or Fuller's earth clay, which can be bentonite or attapulgite. All of these litter ingredients absorb the urine, and as the silica or clay expands, it spreads the urine over more surface space than if puddled, thus drying quicker. As the urine dries, some if not most of the water evaporates out of the urine, leaving behind urea, ammonia, sodium, potassium, calcium, ketones, proteins, amino acids, and other reduction substances, THUS CAUSING THE SMELL. Your litter probably has an odor neutralizer or perfume additive used to cover the smell of urine, but as the urine dries and the water evaporates, so do some of the properties of litter additives.

I questioned how dry the urine was on the floor, in my comment earlier, because the drier the urine, the more it'll smell. If it were still wet or just starting to dry, the ammonia smell may not have been as apparent as if dry.

Your cat may have also been drinking more water, making the urine less concentrated than his last elimination.

Hope this answers your question.

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A cat's urine contains urea, and when the cat has taken a pee in the litterbox ,this urea will be broken down by bacteria that creates the ammonia. This is a bacterium that needs oxygen to do this, and this is what makes the smell.

Most cats drink too little water, and this makes the urine more concentrated, and it therefore contains a higher concentration of urea.

The litter do have a large surface area, and this provides a large area for the bacteria to grow.

It takes a short time before the urine starts to smell. The reason for this is, the bacteria multiplies very fast. To avoid the smell, the wet litter has to be removed within a short time.

Most mammals' urine contains urea and very little ammonia. The name urine actually means contains urea.

So to avoid the smell, be sure to clean the litterbox every day, so the urine doesn't have time to develop the smell.

Your previous cat litter might have contained anti-bacterial ingredients, and this might be the reason your new cat litter starts to smell faster if it doesn't have these anti-bacterial ingredients.