Potty Training

[Peebs720]

Yes hi.. Im quite new to this. i recently purchased a 4 month old Hahns Macaw named Joey. He is awesome and so friendly and already has a great vocabulary. I really want to potty train him. I just dont know how to go about with doing this. if anyone could give me some tips on how to do it, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Courtzrocks]

Welcome! I'm sure someone will come along soon to help.

[4HAND]

In the Winged Wisdom section of the Birds n Ways website there is a great article on potty training.We trained Cheddy useing these methods and he's really good about it.He even says "go poop" if he has to go.
Tena

[PowerBBS]

I'm not sure if it's the same method as the one mentioned above; but we have had success by teaching associative words and actions.

Basically here's what we did to potty train 3 of the four fids we have.

On average a bird will typically poop once every 15 minutes or so (this varies from bird to bird, but for the sake of this article, I'll say it's 15 minutes approx).

Most birds also have a "tell" of when they're about to poop. For example, our birds used to take walk away from us and take about 3 steps backwards before raising tail and dropping a bomb.

In any mater, whether it be time you wait, or the "tell" you look for, we would pick up our fid before they pooped and take them to the designated pooping area (which was thier playgym) and put them on it and say "go poop"! Then sit and wait for them to go poop and then get them to step back up onto our finger and give them praise and reward and say "good bird....", "good bird..." being careful not to say poop until the next event.

We started this training on a Thursday evening (about 6PM) and continued it Friday and all thru the weekend. Being sure to take the bird to the exact same area and putting them on the perch and saying "go poop!" each time. And when they do the deed, giving them praise and reward each time with energy and enthusiasm. "good birdy...."

The process requires a bit of dedication at first on your behalf as it'll take a few days and a lot of trips to the poop area (every time). By Sunday afternoon we had made so many trips to the play gym to watch what by now was becomming extremely discusting to watch; that we had decided we'd try to see if our fid had associated the "go poop!" with the playgym and pooping.

So we started to wait the 15 minutes and at the interval we said to our little fid "go poop!" At first, he walked up to us waiting for a finger to make the trip, but instead we pointed to the play gym and said again excitingly and encouragingly "go poop!" "go poop sweetie..." and sure enough. He did not... but we kept doing this over and over, without immediately going to the gym. Finally, he flew to the gym - rather than us taking him - took about 1 minute and then pooped! We then walked over to the gym and gave him immediate praise and reward. "Good bird.... Such a good little birdy..." again being very careful to not say "poop" again as we always want to reserve the word to only us requesting the action. For this reason it's important to never say the word "poop" unless you want them to actually poop. So be careful not to accdiently say it while you're praising him either.

By that evening, we would wait a for the time and say "go poop".... "go poop sweetie" and he would without hesitation fly off to the gym by himself and do his deed. Then we'd say... from our seats... "good bird sweetie.... good birdy... come here... come here... " and the fid would fly to us and we'd give him praise and reward. Maybe play with him a bit - give him love-ins, etc...

The following day Monday (we worked) and came home and had to instigate a brief re-member the training period - about 30 minutes worth - and our fid was then flying off again on his own to poop and we just keep on offering praise and reward (sometimes with treats even) for his doing the deed over the playgym's news paper bottom rather than over the edge of the couch or on it/us.

We kept/keep this up to date. Never forgetting it. I actually think he likes pooping on the gym just so he can get all the attention for it now.

The key we learned is to always notice why they fly over there and give them praise and occationally remember to say it to them "go poop" just to keep it fresh in their minds.

Our fids have been potty trained by this method and on very little occation have accidents on us/the furniture - they more often than not fly to the gym and poop. I think a secondary reason we had such a success is the play gym is only about 8 feet away from our couch where we spend most of our time, so it's always in sight for them to poop on and isn't away from us so they "... don't miss anything... " when they go and do the deed.

I think teaching them the cage is the "go poop" area can send mixed signals as we mainly only approach the cage to put them to bed or to get them out, or to put them in "time out" for a bad deed. So we elected to not associate the "poop area" with the cage and just make the playgym that area. That way they can play and poop on the gym, or play with us and still poop on the gym. This process can take a few days or weeks. Lucky for us it only took 5 days.

Anyhow that's what worked for us. Sorry for babbling so much about it. They're still trained 2 years later.