toilet training

[jonco62]

hi iam trying to toilet train my baby african grey to just poop in her cage and not when she is out i have tryed to wait for the signs like they say but it is so quick and most of the time you dont know she has done it till its to late she is 14 weeks old she could stop out of her cage longer if stopped pooping all over me any ideas
jonco

[janetafloat]

I think she's much too young to be worrying about that. This is a really important time for you to be working on bonding with your bird and teaching simple but important behaviours like 'step up' not toilet training. Have an old t shirt or something similar to wear when you're handling her and make all your interactions happy & positive.

[Michael]

No no, you want the bird to poop outside the cage. And the bird prefers that too. Less mess to clean in the cage that way.

[Dave & Karen]

Very True... You will want your bird to poop outside his cage as much as possible because they don't like the poop in their cages and it's a lot easier to clean off the floor or a designated area.
Our quaker definitely doesn't like poop in his cage so if he has to go when in there he will climb up on the bars and press his butt up to the side of the cage so it ends up on the outside of his cage. We just place an old towel or newspaper under his cage so cleanup there is easy.
You can also get a T perch and put newspaper under it, then when he shows the first sign that he has to go, place him on that perch and he'll catch on fairly quickly. If he has an accident or doesn't make it to the perch, just place the bird on the poop perch and clean up the mess, never discipline him for going in the wrong place tho.
Another thing about potty training your bird is to not be super strict about it because they will learn it and only go in that certain place, that part would be good, but they may also need to go while you're not there and try to hold it til you get home and place them on the designated poop perch which could lead to digestive system problems later on from trying to hold it too long.

Just line the bottom of the cage with something easily replacable like newspaper or pee pads so they're free to go in there when they have to, but then when out of the cage, they can go in the place you teach them to go.

Typically, most larger birds won't poop on you but the smaller ones will without training... they will usually give you some kind of sign that they gotta go before they go on you or they'll fly off, do their business and return so if you can tell when they gotta go, you can usually get them to the special perch in time before they get you.
With the smaller birds, they'll usually fly off too, but if they're comfortably cuddling on your neck or shoulder they may not want to get off you just to go, but I've trained a few parrotlets by taking them off me and perching them on my finger with my arm extended over where I want them to go, asking them to doo doo, then rewarding them and putting them back on my shoulder once they did it. Shortly after training them this way they'll come off my shoulder and run down my arm so I know to extend it past the bed or couch so they can go without getting it on me, the bed, or the couch etc. The parrotlet I have now will fly off, do his business, and return almost every time already.