You prefer your bird to have the freedom to fly around the house and stretch those feathery wings whenever they need to. However, you don’t want them to poop everywhere in the house. Understandable… to you. How to make your bird understand this too?
Try this:
1. create a pooping spot.
Like us, parrots don’t like to mess up their nest of home area, so they’ll quickly create a pooping spot. Once out of the cage, they will see every spot suitable to poop on, because they know they it’s not their sleeping area. Create a corner in the cage, put for example a lot of newspaper in the corner. It also makes it easier for you to clean and change the papers.
2. Only open the cage door immediately after they pooped.
And only after they pooped. Letting them out immediately after they pooped, will create the relationship pooping=open door in their brain and acts as a positive reinforcement.
3. Let them fly and play for about 10 minutes and get them back in the cage.
Even better would be if they go back in by themselves, but especially in the beginning we need to guide them back to their cages in time, before the poop comes out again.
4. Accidents happen, because they are animals after all. When they poop out of the cage,get them back to the cage immediately.
This will act as a negative reinforcement: Pooping outside, means losing the right to fly and play outside the cage.Being in the cage is not a punishment. They have food and other fun stuff in there after all. Its more about taking away a privilege and hoping that they will connect pooping=in the cage, in their brains.
5. Repeat 2,3 and 4 as often as you can, until they get it.
It takes time to get this done and a whole lot of patience. Not to forget staying consistent. So don’t let them out of the cage if you haven’t seen them poop. My birds are at the point that they understand they have to poop inside first so well, that they’ll actually fake-poop to get out the cage.
Birds also have their own personalities, so things might be different with your bird. Take some time to figure it out.
Here’s a video to help you more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPoWy_kw488You prefer your bird to have the freedom to fly around the house and stretch those feathery wings whenever they need to. However, you don’t want them to poop everywhere in the house. Understandable… to you. How to make your bird understand this too?
Try this:
1. create a pooping spot.
Like us, parrots don’t like to mess up their nest of home area, so they’ll quickly create a pooping spot. Once out of the cage, they will see every spot suitable to poop on, because they know they it’s not their sleeping area. Create a corner in the cage, put for example a lot of newspaper in the corner. It also makes it easier for you to clean and change the papers.
2. Only open the cage door immediately after they pooped.
And only after they pooped. Letting them out immediately after they pooped, will create the relationship pooping=open door in their brain and acts as a positive reinforcement.
3. Let them fly and play for about 10 minutes and get them back in the cage.
Even better would be if they go back in by themselves, but especially in the beginning we need to guide them back to their cages in time, before the poop comes out again.
4. Accidents happen, because they are animals after all. When they poop out of the cage,get them back to the cage immediately.
This will act as a negative reinforcement: Pooping outside, means losing the right to fly and play outside the cage.Being in the cage is not a punishment. They have food and other fun stuff in there after all. Its more about taking away a privilege and hoping that they will connect pooping=in the cage, in their brains.
5. Repeat 2,3 and 4 as often as you can, until they get it.
It takes time to get this done and a whole lot of patience. Not to forget staying consistent. So don’t let them out of the cage if you haven’t seen them poop. My birds are at the point that they understand they have to poop inside first so well, that they’ll actually fake-poop to get out the cage.
Birds also have their own personalities, so things might be different with your bird. Take some time to figure it out.
Here’s a video to help you more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPoWy_kw488