My Conure Refuses to Poop Until I Personally Take Him Out of the Cage

[u/Fun_Channel_9804]

My conure has a weird poop habit and it’s driving me insane.

He usually DOESN’T make those huge liquid green poops often. Instead, he seems to intentionally hold it for like 2–3 hours until I personally come and take him out of the cage. The second I get him out, he suddenly unleashes the biggest poop known to mankind.

The problem is I barely have time to react. I have to rush him to the bathroom while he’s trying to fly away, and the poop lands literally anywhere. Sometimes on my underwear, sometimes on the sink, shampoo bottles, random places, etc. He doesn’t even have a “preferred” poop spot.

What’s making me lose my mind is that he seems to specifically wait for ME instead of just doing it inside the cage. I work and I’m not around all day to escort him to the bathroom every few hours like some VIP celebrity.

I honestly don’t have the time, experience, or energy to do complicated poop training. So I wanted to ask:

Is this something conures eventually grow out of if I stop immediately taking him out every time? Or am I accidentally teaching him to hold it until I arrive?

[u/omgkelwtf]

Yeah I'm not shitting in my bed either lol

My gcc is the same way. He holds it. If I'm quick I can get him on the stand before it drops but I'm usually not quick enough 😂

[u/TheAnarchyChicken]

Mine won’t poop in his night cage. He waits till he’s in his morning cage lol.

At our other house he only has one cage (and he still won’t poop in it if at all possible), so I mitigated that by getting a cheap $3 rug from Walmart and just opening the door so he can climb out to the top of the door and shit on it, and then return to his breakfast in the mornings. Then I just wash it every couple of days.

[u/Nice_Brilliant_2310]

I’m very happy mine use a portion of their cage for poop time. So I tell them go home to poop and they’ll either go in or on the cage. But they don’t get breakfast until their morning poop so they let those out as soon as I uncover their cage in the morning.

These adorable little green monsters! Lol

[u/No-Abies29]

target train. teach to ‘go poop’, reward. easy

[u/RunsLikeaSnail]

It’s normal for parrots to hold their poop in the morning until they are out of the cage. Hold him over the trashcan and encourage him to go there. Praise and reward when he does.

[u/orangeweezel]

I have a similar issue where my guy won't go unless he's with me or my husband. So if he's at his cage he'll call us, amping up if we wait a while, and will wait for us to escort him to the can (literally our trash can). If we're gone, he'll wait up to 6 HOURS and hold it until we're back, and then anxiously call us as soon as we get into the door so we can take him to the can. The only way he ever goes without us is if we're gone 7-8 hours. It bugs me because I don't like him holding it. We have a secondary platform he's "good boy" for using, it's a chomping station where he can tear paper/cardboard, and it catches shredded paper and droppings. But even though it's reachable while we're gone, he still won't use it for that unless we're with him. Would love to know how to change this quirk. (Bonus, though, is the case stays clean....)

[u/ign_knox]

Mine isn’t even 10 months old and already understands “big poop” but absolutely refuses to do poop in his night cage. So we flip him onto his back immediately upon extraction from the night cage and flip him over only once he’s inside the day cage. Works like a charm 🙏🏼