Potty training a baby lorikeet

[Steenbokpixie]

So as I recently posted in the Questions forum, I found a baby rainbow lorikeet on the road and brought him home. He has his feathers, but is still young (someone said he was still a baby on another forum) and has only recently started eating on his own (as opposed to being hand fed).

My boyfriend has a few conditions if I am to keep the little guy. One of them is that the lorikeet must stay in the living room (as opposed to the study where the bf spends what little free time he has and where he does all his uni work) until I get home from work, and then I can bring his cage into the study with us. BUT he cannot go out of the cage in the study until he is potty trained.

What's the best method to potty train a young lorikeet? Preferably I'd like to teach him to poop in his cage only - so, say, when he needs to poop he can go to his cage, which would always be nearby. Alternatively, just pooping on command would work (say if I put him in the cage, say "Go potty", and then take him out once he's relieved himself).

I've already started trying to predict his pooping times and saying "Go potty" before, but sometimes he just poops with seemingly no warning at all. Being young he also poops a lot, so I'm bound to miss times. Recently I started saying "Good potty!" right after I hear him poop, and then taking him to the kitchen to get his favorite treat (baby food). Is this even a good idea? Does praising him right after he goes potty help at all? (I'm also starting to keep the jar of baby food near me at all times so that I don't have to get him out of the cage and go to get baby food each time he does it and can treat him faster).

Once he is potty trained it's going to get so much better for all of us - the boyfriend really does like the little guy, but he says if I want to keep him I'm going to be solely responsible for him, not the bf, which is understandable. When I can take him out of his cage in the study (which is where we are for pretty much the whole evening after I get home from work) he's going to be much more involved with what we're doing instead of just sitting in his cage. I can take him out of his cage outside of the study and of course I will do this, but it should really be only a temporary solution as we pretty much live in the study only :S

 

[HRH Di]

There's another method that I read about here on the forum that uses colored paper and verbal cues (I think). Let me search a bit and see if I can find it.

My Max learned by us just moving him to his perch (the appropriate potty place) when he did his "poopy dance". Before he could fly, he'd chirp a bit to tell us he needed to go. Ruby has her "spots" that she just naturally pooped at which are all (but one) acceptable. We have't worked with Jade as hard as we should.

 

[Quantumcat]

I think they sort of learn by themselves like cats and dogs. I only gave Scarlett treats for pooing in the right spot about four times but she didn't poo in the wrong spot after we'd had her a month.

I think I heard someone say to not let the bird out of the cage until just after you've seen them do a poo, and when they do a poo in an approved spot that's not the cage, to give them a treat.

 

[_Cass_]

Here is a very good link that both of my sisters used to potty train their birds.
How To Potty Train Your Parrot

 

[etse20]

Willie is doing quite well on the pooping department. We hold him on top of the trash can and he'll go. We first just hold him there every 20 minutes or so and wont let him go until he did it. After several tries, he got the hang of it and will just go when we put him there. There are accidents every now and then. But hey, he's just a baby. My GF told me he actually aimed at the trash can from the top of his cage one time too.

 

[Steenbokpixie]

Thanks guys! That article was very interesting - it said that wild parrots do not poop where they eat or sleep and my boyfriend and I noticed that the lorikeet actually tends to aim out of the cage when he poops (as in he literally weaves his back end toward the outside of the cage). Very inconvenient! We've had to put up paper towels at the bottom against the bars so that it doesn't shoot through the bars and make a liquid mess on the table or carpet. It appears that praising them and saying "go potty" right after they go, not just right before, might also work according to that article (which is great because when I hear the tell-tale "splat" I go nuts with the praise. I think his first spoken words if he does start to speak will be "go potty". I'm still intent on teaching him "It's a trap!" for his second spoken words should they ever come ).

 

[_Cass_]

Hehehehe.... I think that "It's a trap!" idea is genuis.