Parrot Poop Training


Parrot Poop Training is not actually as hard as you would think. 'Scooby' my African Grey Parrot was trained within a few days using a basic reward technique, Reward for good behaviour and not for the bad.

Whether you have a young or older Parrot I believe you can train your parrot to poop in a designated area on command. Some of you may think that making a parrot poop somewhere on command is a little untoward and takes the birds natural ways away from them.
This is not so, all we are trying to do here is ask your bird to poop somewhere that is more desirable for us as humans, hopefully eliminating the constant clearing up, especially on that new carpet.
'Scooby' was constantly pooping all over the house and to be honest we found our- selves treading on tip toes watching for every little mess.
	This was not the best of situations. The solution was to train 'Scooby' to poop in a designated place every time she needed it. This was not so hard in the end. We placed a sheet of News paper on the carpet in our living room ,
this is where she spends most time on her play stand and on the floor playing with toys. You can use lots of newspaper in different rooms all over the house if your bird is allowed to wander.
Treats are a must after the deed has been completed, I feed a couple of pine nuts.
The paper was put in the same place every time it was replaced, This way 'Scooby' knew where to find it.

Starting out was simple, I placed Scooby on the Paper and told her " Poo-Poo" This of course got a whistle in reply. (She's not talking yet). I did this every ten minutes or so giving her a little treat
everytime and believe it or not she caught on and even during the first day of training she was pooping on command, Whether it was a little bit or the whole Shobang it was great.

The reward was then given after she pooped and not when she did'nt.

Once Scooby was pooping on the paper every time I asked, the training progressed to adapting the pooping to pooping on the paper of her own accord. This bought its own problems because you will know your bird has about a 2 second warning before they go, Scooby does a little wiggle just before painting the carpet.
	This is of course your warning to place your bird on the paper as soon as possible. Remember you have about 1 second to do this..Only Joking, All birds are different, The idea is to look for this sign and act accordingly.
Place your bird on the paper and say your chosen command, This may be 'Poo Poo', 'Poops',or 'Toilet' this is up to you.

Once you have this mastered you must and always reward your bird with a favourite treat as soon as your bird has done the deed.

Your bird will over time learn that doing the deed on the paper will get a reward, This in itself will promote the training and if you keep doing the above and reward every time without fail your bird will soon discover the link where the news paper is concerned. He/She will soon discover that pooping on the paper is the way to go and this gets rewards. 'Scooby' now finds the paper to poop on. Less mess for me to clear up, this is a good thing right?
You will eventually be able to reduce the rewarding of treats down to a command like "Good Boy / Girl".

Article Written by
Paul Hallissey
Website Administrator/Owner

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Parrot Poop Training