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How to Potty Train Parrot

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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby marie83 » Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:00 am

hlasdf wrote:
Michael wrote:Well once they are potty trained, you can hold the bird away from stand for 15-25 minutes and they will hold it in and when you put them down on stand they will drop it immediately so you can go back to doing fun stuff together. The bird just becomes accustomed to the site of the stand every time it poops because you always put it there prior to it pooping, so it becomes learned through habituation.

I had read elsewhere that birds do not have sphincters and therefore cannot hold in their poop. Does this only go for certain birds?


They do, otherwise waste would just continuously slide out without being formed into a poop.
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby angelblue » Thu Mar 28, 2013 3:52 am

I just
wanted to comment. My amazon was condinioned just as Micheal says with timing but also we taught her to call her spot Nite.nite. As she grew acustomed to being put night nite she realized if she asked to go she could prevent discipline loneliness that resulted from being put away after an accident by asking. She asks "nite nite?" And you consider it a warning if you dont waNt a spot on your clothes. IT worked out great because she identified a solution that keeps everyone happy. She stil, goeswhenever so its nota command its just mutiual recognition of what has the best outcome. :amazon:
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby Toyer12 » Tue Apr 16, 2013 6:37 pm

We potty trained my grey by sheer fluke, he wiggles just before he wants to poo and we took that as a cue to pop him on the toilet. At first he didn't like to stand on the seat so I dangles his bum over while holding him, then gradually over the next few days encouraged him to sit on the seat. Now each time he is out he wiggles then waits to be taken to the toilet......I am quite happy about his progress as his morning poos were more like morning bombs.

I havent quite mastered it with me amazon as he doesn't go as much or gives us a cue but he never poos while on us, he seems to hold it until he is on a stand or his cage.

Good luck!!! and it's well worth it. :gray:
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby Calica » Tue May 21, 2013 5:38 pm

If you train a parrot to poop in a particular place, does it cause problems when that place isn't available? For example, what do the birds do when you take them out socializing?
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby joeynrichu » Wed Jul 03, 2013 5:49 am

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 :sun: .. 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 :danicing: ) ... :D . 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
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby Nokota » Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:39 pm

midlandhippy wrote:
Blackfang320 wrote:hi i was wondering if it would be a good idea to give my GCC a treat as a reward for going to the bathroom in the right spot? :gcc: its really appricated thanks =)


I would also like to know the answer to this if someone can help?


As Michael says, using treats for potty training can have bad results for the bird.

I'll occasionally give my cockatiel a little millet when she flies to her bright red "potty perch" of her own accord and immediately poops, to show that I approve, but don't tie pooping to anything that you have to cue or else your bird may hold it in too long and make itself sick waiting for your to cue it if it is hungry and wants that treat.

If the bird is using the "potty" or flying off to the perch to go on it's own, I don't see the harm in treating it for doing this once in a while to show approval. As long as it is a behavior the bird cues and not yourself, so they're not holding it in all day in hopes of a treat, I don't see an issue. It's helped me.
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby Nokota » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:17 pm

hlasdf wrote:
Michael wrote:Well once they are potty trained, you can hold the bird away from stand for 15-25 minutes and they will hold it in and when you put them down on stand they will drop it immediately so you can go back to doing fun stuff together. The bird just becomes accustomed to the site of the stand every time it poops because you always put it there prior to it pooping, so it becomes learned through habituation.

I had read elsewhere that birds do not have sphincters and therefore cannot hold in their poop. Does this only go for certain birds?


That's silly. Of course they do. Otherwise they'd never stop dripping waste everywhere they went continually. All birds have a sphincter. Even mice, which seem to poop at random too, have sphincters. Wherever you read that, someone was making things up and passing off their own unproven theory as a fact.
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby Nokota » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:25 pm

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 :sun: .. 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 :danicing: ) ... :D . 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! >.<
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby cockatiels15P » Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:40 pm

WOW COOL IT WORKED UR AMAZING
:greycockatiel: ~ ||[Tina]||
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Re: How to Potty Train Parrot

Postby DanaandPod » Tue Dec 09, 2014 8:03 pm

I have feared attempting this because of what i read about birds holding it in... I may try this though, not sure yet. All I can say though is thank god for bird poop off spray. the inventor was a genius. I also have layed down clear carpet runner purchased cheaply from Home depot which makes life easier too. But, there are those odd places... like on a computer key board...where I'd like to rid of poop for the most part! interestingly enough, this is how i assisted potty training an eight year old severely autistic child. The mother researched how often a child his age needed to pee etc... and we timed it and had him sit the potty. It worked. And, I'm sure Temple Grandin would agree that parrots are autistic. ;)_
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