Green Cheek Conure

[Parrotpeople]

Lucky you! Our GCC loves bells for sure and grapes (have to be cut up for her though) AND most definately get a happy hut. I don't know what Ziggy would do without hers! Oh and our little one is quite fond of bathing, does it every day without fail.

[jack1991]

i have a really really important question

is there any way of toilet training GGC's?, its becoming quite a nuisance when you have to clean up after him, especiallu just after he has eaten grapes, they just go straight through him!

any help regarding this would be a god send

[hcarey]

Don't feed him too far from where you want him to go potty, or get yourself a small trash can and everytime he has to go put him over it, and say "Ok, go potty" and prasie him when he makes it. You might want to have a stick near by so you can get him to step up and get him over the trash can quickly. Make it a game, you can usualy tell when he is getting ready to go, and ofcourse after they eat, soon after they will have to go. Timing is everything. Just watch the time it takes and you will be able to be able to "know" when he has to go! Better go buy some "Poop Off" You are going to need it!!! LOL ANd welcome to the wonderful world of birds!!!!!!! Green cheeks love to go exploring, (see pic) my Joe bird wandered into my puppys cage looking for water, and he has NO FEAR of the dog or the Cockatoo! He rules the roost!!!

[Busguy]

Regarding the "potty" situation, I agree with what hcarey had to say on the subject. It takes a fair amount of attention but when Sage was younger, I would always try to gauge time and body language and get her to one of two perches and tell her "go potty" until she did followed by praise.

Over time I stopped trying to time it but would just regularly take her to a perch and say "go potty". If she needed to, she would but if she didn't she would crouch down and pull her wings back to show me she as trying but nothing was coming out...

She is still pretty good about it but I have to admit that as time passed I have become more lazy and tolerant. I have a chair cover and always wear "bird shirts" when she is on me. Even so, she generally will fly to her stand when nature calls but there are occasional mistakes.

[rockybird]

Rocky rarely goes on me, but it does happen. As a baby I noticed that he held it all night and wouldnt go for 8+ hours. I found this out when I took him out of the cage one morning and he went on me. I was shocked at the amount from such a little bird and I thought maybe something was wrong with him. I figured it out, though. What I would do then, is hold him over the toilet or trash and say POTTY first thing in the AM and it would all plop out. They are so smart - it wasnt but a day or so before he figured it out. It got so he was hardly if ever going on me, but of course, like Busguy, I got lazy. Still, he does his best not to go on me. I always give an exasperrated sigh and "oh rocky" when he does. I know he picks up on the fact that he made a mistake. For the most part, i think you have to live with it. I have heard of people even making little potties out of ashtrays with a perch and training their bird to go on that. I just didnt have the patience to do it. My caique will hold for hours, on the other hand. Neither bird will go in their night cage (NEVER have) or in the bed. I think they think they are nests.

[Courtzrocks]

Sorry i just have to say that in australia they do NOT use pink for girls and blue for boys. Most of the birds in a clutch have all the same colour leg bands and are sexed later or not sexed at all so there is no way you could tell the sex by the colour of a leg band. I have seen many clutches with all the same colour leg bands so they know which clutch it was from with colours of blue, green, red, pink, yellow, etc. Sorry I just had to say that. But as far as green cheeks go they are awesome birds and if you have looked around on websites to make sure no one is looking for him/her then you have got yourself a really cool bird. A green cheek is definately the next bird i am getting.

[hcarey]

Joe bird holds it at night as well, when I take the cover off and let him out it is like "OMG! That came out of you???" I didn't think they could hold that much! LOL I find you just learn to "work around it" get to know and anticipate their next move, or you just let them go and deal with it.

[rockybird]

LOL! Isnt that the truth? When I first saw Rocky go potty after holding it all night, I thought, "This cant be right! i've got to take this bird to the vet!" Then I looked in his cage and saw a couple other large droppings and figured it out.

Once, I took Rocky to visit a friend. I must have really tired because I slept in very late the first day. In the AM, I took Rocky out of the cage. I was so scared that he was going to go on their carpet that I literally RAN down the hall holding Rocky upside down to their toilet. I think they thought i was crazy (which may or may not be true).

[4HAND]

There is a great article titled "The ABC'S of Potty Training" in the Winged Wisdom magazine section of BirdsnWays Guide to Pet Birds, Parrots & Exotic Birds Care & Breeding. Breeders, classifieds, products & information. Macaws, cockatoos, cockatiels, amazons website on potty training parrots.We used these methods on Cheddy and he is very reliable.He even says "go poop" when he has to go.
Tena

[SniperIX]

Mine were never fully potty trained, over time they learned thats its not okay to poop on their owners though. They usually give you a sign that they want to poop and we rush them over to their cage, other times they can't hold it in. When their on our sofas they walk backwards towards the ledge when they want to go potty, so we have to stop them and rush them to their cage. Again, we can't catch it everytime o.0.

What we did is buy a cheap rug to place under their cage because they have a nasty habit of aiming the wrong way when we open the top up. If they do it on the sofa we just clean it up with some lysol but if it looks like their about to go potty we pick them up and rush them over to their cage, but its not always possible