potty training
Moderator: Mods
potty training
does anyone have any ideas on how to potty train an IRN? Our baby loves to be out and about exploring going from room to room. I find i'm constantly behind him with tissues in tow. Luckily our floors are tiled not carpeted. In the space of half an hour he leaves about 4 to 5 droppings. Any suggestions how to deal with this? Should i just leave it and wait til he's back in his cage and then go around cleaning? How does everyone else handle this? I'm not sure if the droppings can cause disease in humans so i just go and clean up straightaway. I read on the net somewhere that parrots can pick up disease even from dried faeces. Anyone have an idea about that?
Hi Selma
We have managed to potty train our bird - even though there are still little accidents every now & again! My vet tipped me on how to do this. Birds poo every 15 minutes - roughly - so every 15 minutes or so we put him on his perch and say 'do poos!' or 'poo-poos!'. As soon as he does his business he can come off again. If he doesn't do one we'll try him again in 5 minutes. This is the only time we use these words with him. You have to be pretty vigilant with your timing at first, but after a while you will just know when it's time. After dinner we cut down the time to about 10 minutes. He picked up this training within a few hours believe it or not! Give it a go & keep me updated. Good luck!
We have managed to potty train our bird - even though there are still little accidents every now & again! My vet tipped me on how to do this. Birds poo every 15 minutes - roughly - so every 15 minutes or so we put him on his perch and say 'do poos!' or 'poo-poos!'. As soon as he does his business he can come off again. If he doesn't do one we'll try him again in 5 minutes. This is the only time we use these words with him. You have to be pretty vigilant with your timing at first, but after a while you will just know when it's time. After dinner we cut down the time to about 10 minutes. He picked up this training within a few hours believe it or not! Give it a go & keep me updated. Good luck!
-
Greg Sujecki
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 4:59 am
- Location: Melbourne
- Contact:
The digestive tract in a bird takes 9 minutes on average,meaning once they eat it takes 9 minutes to pass through.That to depends on the birds size.I give Mylo 10 minutes after he eats to pass on a newspaper in every room i'm in and 8 out of 10 times he passes.The 2 well my fault for l forgot 
Greg, Mylo and the flock!
just a quick note on the above..
I read someone saying that when the birdie goes potty they say "poo poo" there is a big danger in doing this as the bird learns to associate the word poo poo with doing its business. In some cases, birds have been known to hold in their potty until someone says "poo poo" or whatever the word is associated with the deed. This is obviously bad for the bird as if it doesnt hear those words, it doesnt excrete for days and could lead up to death in certain circumstances..
What alot of people have recommended doing is holding the bird above the place you wish for it to potty, and AFTER the potty, praise it with cuddles and scratches along with good girl or good boy - whatever..
Doing the potty thing in this way - birds eventually start dancing around to show you that they need to potty or they go potty on their own if the place is readily accessible..
Hope this info helps..
I read someone saying that when the birdie goes potty they say "poo poo" there is a big danger in doing this as the bird learns to associate the word poo poo with doing its business. In some cases, birds have been known to hold in their potty until someone says "poo poo" or whatever the word is associated with the deed. This is obviously bad for the bird as if it doesnt hear those words, it doesnt excrete for days and could lead up to death in certain circumstances..
What alot of people have recommended doing is holding the bird above the place you wish for it to potty, and AFTER the potty, praise it with cuddles and scratches along with good girl or good boy - whatever..
Doing the potty thing in this way - birds eventually start dancing around to show you that they need to potty or they go potty on their own if the place is readily accessible..
Hope this info helps..
Sami
