since ive had them, my birds have decided on their own, some "favorite" places to poop. even within their cages, my birds seem to poop in only certain places, as if they were conscious of not messing up theie whole cages (and they each have large aviary style cages). whats amazing is that they seem to extend this consciousness to the house, and really seem to regard the house as their living space, and generally only poop under places they perch. both birds like to hang out on me, but when mother nature calls, they go off to a spot away from me generally. my bourke prefers pooping while perched on a play area. when my GCC gets really settled down with me, like when he's clinging to the front of my shirt while I work onthe computer, taking naps there, etc, he doesnt seem to want to poop on me. its like i'm part of his immediate clean zone and he wants to keep that clean. so he stretches and walks onto the desk and poops there and comes back to the front of my shirt right under my chin, which is his favorite spot. it takes just a second for me to wipe up his tiny poop from the desk with some disinfectant spray and a paper towel, which i always have handy, and there are wipeable surfaces or newspaper under all their other play areas. they don't poop on my husband because he doesnt really handle them, so they dont spend enough time near him to get the urge to poop at that moment. i also have hardwood floors and wipeable furniture throughout my house, so cleaning is a breeze if there is any poop in the wrong place.
my main reason for never "potty-training" my birds is because of what marie mentions above:
marie83 wrote:My main concerns would be training to poop on command or training to poop in only one specific place and the bird trying to hold it for a period of time - obviously if they really really need to go then they will but I would be concerned about them holding it for too much longer than what is natural for them and there is a possibility they will try to hold it as long as they can if they are really responsive to being trained. Whilst I have no real knowledge of what a bird holding on to their waste for longer than natural may do to them and my opinion on this is theroetical, I assume that it cannot be good for them, a bit like holding urine for too long can cause a higher risk of contracting a water infection, holding faeces too long can cause constipation etc.
my birds seem to decide on their own when to hold it in and when to poop. their decisions on this matter seem to be pretty reasonable to me. i pretty much dont want to interfere with that natural process of theirs, if i can help it, especially when it is no inconvenience to me. (again, mine are small birds. i think for larger birds, michael's method of allowing the bird to train itself to poop where it lands, is the way to go. if i ever got a larger bird, thats what i would do, rather than train it as a command.
just my two cents!
