Toilet Training

I was wondering if i could get some advice and thoughts on toilet training. There are conflicting ideas on the topic. Some say its psychologically damaging.
I am not sure about the reasons why it is damaging?

I do apologise ahead of time if someone has already posted about this subject.


Edit: i should have placed this thread in the training section. D:

There are 2 ways to potty train a bird. The first is to get the bird to signal when it has to go so you can put them home (if clipped) or to just return to a designated area to go (if flighted). This method, training only to go in a designated area, is not generally considered harmful as the bird should have no qualms about going in their cage or on their play stand (or wherever they'd be if you weren't home or able to pick them up for a number of hours). The other and more common method you hear about is to train the bird go poop on command. This is the method that can cause issues for the bird. Some birds become "over trained" and will not poop unless commanded, meaning they can sit all day while your at work not pooping because they are so well trained not to poop unless you tell them too. Not only can that be psychologically distressing but also can be dangerous to their health to hold their poop too long (parrots poop an insane amount of times a day compared to other animals).

Potty training actually happened naturally for our bird. We never deliberately trained him in fact. We'd just watch him very carefully when he was out and the moment he'd start dropping his butt to poop, we'd grab him and run him back to his cage so he could go before bringing him back over. Guess he eventually got tired of being interrupted and started waddling over and raising his foot and acting antsy, which we assumed meant he wanted to be put home but quickly learned meant he just wanted to be picked up and put home to poop without being bothered. Very smart of him. Been potty trained with virtually no accidents since, though he will still go wherever if we ignore his signal for too long (which is good. I'd rather a poo on the carpet than him holding it for more than a minute or two). My parents birds fly home to poop. Over the years, they too have picked up that humans do not appreciate poo on the carpet and furniture. Parrots are smart, like toddlers, and just like a toddler you potty train them by showing them where to go when they have to.

Thank you for the advice. Very helpful !

Agree with Kiwi, the damage is in making the process of going to poop restrictive. (With things like a cue, or designated spots)

For the time being I'm taking the 'cover everything in newspaper' approach since I'm not very good at reading when it's time to go. But if I were to make a concerted effort, I'd use the second technique kiwi mentions.

If my bird happens to go in the right spot, I'll praise her but I don't think it'll twig that way, I'm not sure if she'll put two and two together...

My Amazons (except for Luna who is to new) learned not to poop on me.
I guess I used Kiwibirds method of closely watching for signs that they were going to let one go and move them quickly to a safe area.

once they learned the would move to some other area and go rather than poop on us humans.

As smart as Bella is, she has not learned not to poop on humans.
she has only become less trustful of sitting with us, afraid that we will make a sudden move when she is going to go.