Potty Training Gone Wrong

[FloridaPeaches]

So a few days again I began training my six month old conure to go back to her play top while out to go to the bathroom. I was doing this by placing her on the play top and telling her to 'go potty' until eventually she did. I would then praise her, give her a treat and put her on my shoulder to work around the house. I would set a timer and take her back to the play top 15 or 20 minutes later and repeat the process. In two days we had a lot of successes. It was going well and I thought she might even understand what I expected her because one time she flew back to cage to go potty. The next day though she went poop sometimes 7 minutes apart, or 15 or 2, which made it impossible to take back to her cage in time. Now she's pooping everywhere and I don't how to fix it. How can I continue her potty training?

 

[noodles123]

Potty training is tricky and can actually cause health issues when done improperly. I would suggest praising your bird when he/she poops in the correct location and moving them to the location if you think they are about to poop. You don't want them holding it in when inside of their cage because they think they cannot go there. It can cause issues. Similarly, you don't want them to force poop out to please you, as this can cause issues as well.
With mine, I learned her pooping pattern and what she looked like when she was about to go. Ideally, I moved her to the pooping space right before she went, and when I knew she was going (judging by her stance) I would say "go poop!" "GOOD POOPING". Anytime she pooped where she was supposed to, I said "GOOD POOPING, YAY!" but if it was elsewhere, I just ignored it.

I am not sure if my method is entirely safe, but it worked for me. My bird will bob if she needs to go and is in a location where she is not wanting to do so....Then I take her to her poop area and she goes. That having been said, she is not so trained that she will hold it in in the event of an emergency. She just prefers to go where she is supposed to...

You might consider using portable mats as the signal of where pooping is okay- my bird knows to poop on these (whether around her cage or where she is perched). If your bird learns to associate the mats with pooping, perhaps that would help?

 

[charmedbyekkie]

I'll build off of what Noodles' mum said (she's 100% spot on about prolapse if your bird forces too much or intestinal problems if your bird holds it too much).

For potty training, you should be doing roughly what was described above. It's called capturing (see a link here about it
https ://www.exoticdirect.co.uk/news/how-train-bird-using-positive-reinforcement). It's really parrot-initiated training where you build positively off of their actions. Example: if your bird shakes before going poo, then you quickly shift them to their poop perch and praise when they go poo there. It was also going to happen (they needed to relieve themselves), you just built off of it and made it a success.

We have 2 set places for pooping in the house - his cage door and his training perch (both are in different rooms) - and our little guy is fully-flighted, so he'll just fly there.

Now, like any training, YOU the human have to be consistent. What worked for us was spending one weekend when we had the time to keep a close eye on him. The moment he gave his body shake or his poop squat, we swoop him up and put him on his poop perch, then gave our cue word as he went, then praised and treated. He learned within a day.

When we go on walks outside, his body cues are always listened to, but in addition to that, if he doesn't give a cue but it's been about 15 minutes, we'll put him on a perch and tell him the cue word. At that point he'll either go or he won't - we don't force him either way. If he doesn't go, we just continue on our way. If he does, then treat if you're still at the beginning stages of potty training so he solidifies that association.

But just because they learn within a day doesn't mean YOU the human can slack off. If you are inconsistent, the training can easily be undone.

Nowadays, our main problem is revenge poops - when he's upset at us, he'll purposefully fly to the wrong place, make eye contact, and go.

 

[Anansi]

Both posts above do a great job of showing how to potty train your bird. And consistency is definitely key.

Just to emphasize something Charmed mentioned, watching for those body cues is huge. I remember saying at one point that Jolly was pretty much 100% potty-trained, but that Maya was maybe 75-85%. But then I came to learn something. Turned out the 15-25% failure rate was actually on me!

Why? Well, Jolly learned what I expected same as Maya, but he's a confident flier. So the urge would hit him, he'd fly off my shoulder, do his business and return. No muss, no fuss. But Maya is afraid of flying. So, 75-85% of the time, I anticipated the timing for when she would need to go just right. Hence the success. But on the times when there was a fail, it was either because I got caught up in what I was doing and waited too long, or because she wasn't a machine and had to go earlier than usual.

The first is clearly on me. But so is the second. Because once I got better about observing her body language, I finally saw that she never did 'surprise attacks'. She actually warned me. Every. Single. Time.

Birds do a lot of their communication through body language. To a fellow bird, what she was 'saying' with her movements would have been as clear and unmistakable as a person talking to us would be. So, to Maya's mind, she was letting me know... and I wasn't acting on the info provided. My fault.

But once I got sensitive to those subtle body movements? Her success rate joined Jolly's at 100%. A lot of the time, we just need to meet them halfway in the training.