Parrot Potty Training

Good Morning;
I have a question for all. I’m lucky enough to adapt a TAG for a rescue, he’s 2 yrs old and his name is Zeus. I was told by the rescue owner that I should not potty train any parrot because the parrot will only go on command and if I’m not available the parrot will not go and relieve himself, that will be bad since the parrot will be backed-up and might need emergency vet care. Is this true, the parrot will only go if you tell hem to but will not to if you’re not around to the degree that he will be backed-up? Please help from anyone who is successfully potty trained his/her parrot. thanks and appreciated.
Magdi

Hi there! If you use the search function on the forum, you'll find a lot of threads with this very concern.

Our little guy is potty trained, but not in the way that he goes on cue. There is a concern that either your bird will have gastrointestinal problems from trying their best to hold it in or they might cause themselves to prolapse by trying their best to force it out.

The way we trained him is that he has set places to go when he needs to relieve himself. We watched for his body language. The moment he gave a physical cue that he was about to go, we would put him on his designated poop perch. As he went, we'd say a cue word (hoping that one day he'll verbally tell us when he needs to go) and praise with a treat
He still gets a treat every so often if he flies to the poop perch and poops.

When we're outside, walking about, it's a matter of timing and reading his body language. Every 10-15 min or so, we'll put him down and ask if he needs to go via his cue word. If he doesn't, then we just continue walking. If he does, he'll go then. Or sometimes we know to put him down when he gives his physical cue.

There are more threads with more detailed explanations if you're interested. But I hope this helps!

My boys are both potty trained. Yoda 'mostly' goes on his perch, Trigger is about 95% reliable. They both will fly to their perch as needed to do their business. Yoda will sometimes peep or nibble on an ear to let us know to put him on a perch. Neither of them have any trouble going when they need to go. We did teach them a command word for pooping, to cue them what we're expecting when we put them on a perch, but they certainly won't wait for it or for that matter respond to it immediately.

there is some truth to this--- birds who are "potty trained" incorrectly can end up holding it in to the point of illness, or pushing it out (to make you happy) to the point of prolapse....

That's actually the first I hear about parrots holding it in that bad. Jacob is potty trained, the way we trained him, I was a kid back then so my memory of it isn't that great, but I believe it was as easy as whenever having him on use for 20 minutes we put him back and told him to do his poopoos till he did then praised him for it, repeat. The only time Jacob used to hold it in was in long vehicle rides but he since learned that it's okay to poop in the vehicle, we had a perch mounted and newspaper where he'd poop. At first before he was pooping the the vehicle, we'd stop and let him out to poop on the side of the road.