joeynrichu wrote:Hi...
My name is Raeez and i am from India. I have a lil companion, a sun conure, my first bird, i call him Joey
.. well i never actually potty trained him. He is almost three months old now. Before he learned to fly i used to keep him down evry 15 minutes or so. He used to poop then, so that he could come back running to me after he is done. Now he has started to fly around, i was thinking of clipping his wings when i came across the post in here mentioning the various stress levels and health issues faced by clipped birds. Thank God i didnt do that to my Joey. Well coming back to the point, as he is a flighted bird (still a baby though
) ...
. Now when i put him down or back in the cage for potty, he immediately flys back to my shoulder and wouldnt go back. So its tough getting him to stay on the ground or the cage. If at all , I will have to lock the cage until he goes, and takes him back after that. So even if i get a perch later on i think he will still be comfortable on my shoulder. He doesnt like to be taken off from my shoulder at all. Suggestions pls
Get him a really comfortable perch that can go wherever you happen to be with him, and if he flies back to you without pooping, simply keep placing him on it until he poops, and when he does, give him tons of praise and then allow him back on your shoulder. He can fly back to you as much as he likes, but if you keep putting him back on the perch until he poops, he will get the idea eventually.
However, I would wait. Young birds have much worse control over their pooping than older ones, just like human children. They're not good at holding it, at all, and sometimes don't realize they're going. It's better to wait until he's about a year old before actively potty training him.
I've made several wall-mounting perches for my birds (Command strips are AWESOME!) and wall-mounting shelves to hold paper towel under them so I don't have to worry about them taking up floor space, and can mount perches over my couch and stuff. I have three of these in my bedroom and at least one in each room the birds hang out in so that they have a safe place to "go" nearly anywhere in the house. This also gives them places to fly to so they don't land on (and poop on) my mother's paintings and the curtains. You can train your birds to use the perches when they fly around by praising them for landing on the perches and just chasing them away from other things (like paintings etc) putting double sided tape along the tops of picture frames and curtain rods also helps - in fact it's better to do this than to chase your bird - birds hate standing on sticky things, so the tape can teach them not to land some places all by itself.
You aren't having this issue yet because your little one is still in his clingy "baby" stage, but once he hits adolescence and wants some independence, you're going to need to train him to know what he is and isn't allowed to land on. Vivi never ever left my shoulder when she was small, but when she hit seven months... I couldn't keep her off anything! >.<