Help with my Conure

[julienzac]

I have a wonderful black capped conure named Baxter, he is a little over a year old and he is the sweetest bird and truly my companion. Lately I have been having some problems with him as far as leaving bird poop everywhere he goes. I leave him on his cage for awhile, hoping he will use his cage. But no matter what, he waits for me to pick him up and then it is bird poop everywhere. I am not sure what the proper punishment is for a bird. I love having him out of the cage, but he is making a true mess at this point and I am at a loss as to how to handle this. I would appreciate any and all advice on this situation.

[Eliza]

Baxter must be a cutie -- you'll have to share photos some time :)

While I haven't tried this, you CAN potty-train your parrot. Conures are smart little parrots so there's a very good chance that you can teach Baxter to go potty in his cage, on a piece of paper towel or even over a trash can.

Here's an article that might be helpful: Winged Wisdom Pet Bird Magazine - The ABC's of Potty Training

HTH!

[Tx mommy]

Ours hates to poop in his cage he will hang on the side and poop out the side of it. We have trained him to poop over the trash can, basically my husband watches for signs that he looks like he's going to poop and puts him over the trash can saying poop.

[Young]

I'm not sure that "proper punishment" for pooping is what your looking for. "How to train" your baby to poop in a certain area might be more appropriate. Punishing a bird for pooping is like punishing me for talking, just shouldn't be done.

Birds poop... and it makes a mess, you can't get past that. One of the benefits of being a parront, lol.

[for the love of birds]

I have a Pearly Conure and he is trained to go potty.. he shows signs when he needs to go and you know what you have to do..take them were you want your bird to go and give your command (mine is "go do poop kiwi") and i point and bombs away. It takes some conures a little longer than others but once that is established they are almost easier than training a dog to sit. I would start first thing in the morning when you wake up and go to the cage and say your good morning to your conure, open the door and give your command to step up and take your conure to the desired poop station and give your command.. when your conure does the bathroom routine praise him/her and tell them what a good bird he/she is and a little rub on the head and in no time..potty trained conure

[NotEnoughTime]

Originally Posted by julienzac

:I am not sure what the proper punishment is for a bird.

Frankly I am not a great believer in "punishment." Sometimes it must be done to prevent a bird from harming itself - but I would treat punishment as a last resort for some serious self destructive or anti-social behaviours. Even in this case I would only use a spray bottle with water in it...

It is a fact of life that birds poop - and they poop a lot. There is, from what I can see, good speculation that pooping "lightens the load" so that flight is easier. Makes sense to me.

The trick of training a bird to poop in an appropriate place is also training yourself to spot the "poop signs." When you see the little backward poop dance you need to drop everything and move the bird to the poop spot. Usually she won't poop if you immediately stick a finger at her and tell her "up" if she is caught early enough in the poop dance.

Then you move her to the appropriate poop area (or if you are training to poop on command then you put her over whatever is appropriate) and say "go poop." If she poops then reward immediately with her favourite treat and have a parrot party.

After only a few sessions she'll get the idea.

Now - here is the hard part - birds poop *a lot*!!! So you need to find out how often she poops and make sure that you take her to the poop spot *before* the poop dance. Then say, "go poop." If she *needs* to go she will - and then you have a *really big* parrot party...

She will still poop in places you don't want her too - but that's one of the benefits of being a bird owner... But you will have a much more managable level of bird poop in the house :-).

[SDavid]

Melinda Johnson's "Clicker Training for Birds" has a section on potty training. In addition, concepts like punishment, reward, reinforcement, etc. are discussed as they apply to birds. Even if you don't use a clicker (you don't have to) it's a really good book for the purpose of understanding your bird's behavior and how to train him.

Amazon.com: Clicker Training for Birds (Getting Started): Melinda Johnson: Books

[SDavid]

"I am not sure what the proper punishment is for a bird. "

Generally speaking the proper punishment for unwanted behavior is to ignore that behavior. Technically speaking it's called "negative punishment." Conversely you want to reward good behavior. Personally I'd advise against the "spray bottle" method because you may be sending mixed signals to your bird. Water (or being misted) is something that birds generally enjoy and you should encourage yours to do so if he doesn't. It's good for him. In your case though, you don't want to be thinking about punishing your bird at all because, although you may not like it, he's not doing anything wrong. Birds have fast metabolic rates - they are very active and burn lots of energy (think about flight and how busy birds in your own backyard always seem). Even though pet birds are usually not as active as ones in the wild, with this regard they are no different. So, birds poop frequently as well.

Now, while you may be able to train your bird to poop on command, you can also learn to look for signs that he's going to poop. Keep newspaper here and there around the house and when he's going to go just place him over the paper. Keep in mind that there's a school of thought that disagrees with "pooping on command" or "in a certain area" because your bird might begin to "hold it in." This is not something you'd want him to do.

Another book I'd recommend is "Lets Celebrate Pet Birds" by T.J. Lafeber DVM, another one that provides alot of insight into pet birds, their nature, and well being with us.

[Jwhear]

I just use a solution called Doo Disolve made by a local pet company and it works really well. I just clean up after they go and cover my furniture. I have 7 birds and I can't run them to a potty spot everytime one of them needs to go. I guess it would be very do-able with only one bird. Clicker training is my favorite.

Good luck