Toilet training lovebirds

[lvicini]

Hello,
I sent today the 4th suit to dry clean this month (and a countless number of shirts directly to the washing machine) because of my lovely friends landing on my shoulder and leaving a souvenir. They love to land on the edge of my computer screen and watch me working. No need to tell what they drop behind the computer screen...

I could leave them in the cage all the time, but I love to see them flying around the house and my office.

Is there a way to toilet train them?

[Mummieeva]

There is no for sure way to potty train them. Some people have been able to train their birds to fly back to the cage. But it is not super common. I always wear old clothes when it is out of cage time.

[summoora]

There are guides and things about toilet training lovebirds or parrots in general. The main idea is that whenever you see the classic poop signs, say something that is explicit and easy to recognize, like "go poop" followed by lots of praise if you manage to get them to do it in the cage or on a napkin. Before you let them out, try to get a poop out of them first. Try timing the poops to aid in training.Don't get them so well trained that they try to hold it till you tell them to, just until they get the idea of what an ideal poop area is. You could probably prevent the holding poops issue by rewarding poops in the cage or a napkin that happen without a command (just not so consistently that they only poop for treats and praise lol)

[Bubblelady]

Buddy trained herself! When she was a baby she'd poo on me but as an adult she'd hop off me when I was sitting, poo, and come back. She tried to miss me if I was up and about by leaning WAY back, but that resulted in poo down my back. Once I learned her "schedule", I'd know when a poo was immenent and could hold her over a waste basket or tissue & say "Poop" & she would. People were always impressed. And once she was grown up, she never pooed when inside my clothing. But she did this herself...I just paid attention and said "Poop" whenever she did. She was such a special little girl...sigh....

[lvicini]

I will try.

The problem is that I see no clear signs of when they are about to poop or not. The only thing is that they will squat a fraction of a second before letting go. Far too late to take any corrective action. I couldn't spot any frequency as it look to me that they are pooping at random intervals. My lovebirds are still quite young (6.5 and 12 weeks) so maybe things will improve with age...

[summoora]

*shrugs* when my three week old wants to poop, he lifts his wings and wiggles his butt.

[Chickobee]

Some people have a sort of bird cape that they put on when their birds are out so it can catch poops and food scraps.

I would definitely suggest changing out of your business suits before taking birds out to play!

Lots of us have "bird shirts" that we don't care about that we wear when playing with our birds.

[lvicini]

My routine from the beginning when the two birds were mostly hand fed, was to take the box back and forth from home to office, in order to always keep an eye on them and the have them feeling my presence (I was keeping the box next to my desk)

Now I have a cage at home and a cage in the office and I transport them every day (it is just a 15 minutes drive). Since I am alone in a fairly big office I let them fly out from now and then :-)

The cape looks like a very interesting idea and I will go for that. The other alternative would be to leave them alone in the cage at home during the day (but I don't think it'd the best option). What do you think?

[Care9920]

Hi livicini,

I hope I am not too late with my reply, but this is coming from an owner of a potty trained birdie. I am attaching a link to an article that I found very useful that was written by a vet in the United States.

All I can say is,his method worked for my Indigo, so I'm sure it can work for your birds too. We just have to be reasonable with what we expect from them. I keep in mind how long it has been since Indigo has pooped and when I think it's time, I bring him to the toilet or trash or something. I very rarely have poop on my shoulder. Indie also knows I expect him to drop when I take him out of the cage. What I don't expect him to do is fly back to his cage to do it and then come back to me - I believe that is pretty extraordinary for lovebirds, though not impossible as Bubblelady has experienced!

I hope you find this article as helpful as I have!

http://www.trueloveaviary.com/howtopotrbi.html

[Arabianhorselover]

i have read that article before. It says that they need to go every 15-20 minutes. I think they are talking about larger birds. My Lovebird seems to go at least every 10 minutes.