this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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How do you stop it from pooping everywhere? I had a conure who was "trained" to fly back to her cage to poop, but she'd only actually do it a fraction of the time. I imagine chicken poop is a little messier than a tiny conure.
Stop? That's a bit of an overstatement if I claimed that lol.
But strongly limit is easy enough. You just reward the bird any time they go where you want them to, while starting out with that "place" being huge, and eventually shrinking it. That is made faster if you can identify when the bird is going to poop, and help them get there.
We used disposable pads at first, then switched to washable pads that are the same size and color (no idea if chickens can see in color, I just realized I never looked that up). We got her in October, and it was December before she would try to get to a pad reliably.
Luckily, unless she's voiding only the wet stuff (calling it urine doesn't feel right, nor pee, but it's the equivalent), it isn't bad. When she does miss the pad, it's because she doesn't really know that the poop is supposed to be on it, not just her feet lol. It's mostly very dry and firm, so there's not enough mess to be a problem as long as we monkeys pay attention. She'll do a light dance, lift her tail, and a little blob of stuff pops out, dry enough that even on a white pad surface, you can't see anything when you remove it.
She gets insistent when she's on my shoulder and needs to go, so I just keep a pad handy and move her onto it.
Since it's that dry, it's very easy to just grab the poo with some tissue and toss it in a bag and then dump the bag into the compost heap at the end of the day, when she's inside all day
I'm not saying there's never accidents, but she tries to do what we want in that regard. But our floors are all easy to clean, so it isn't onerous when an accident happens.
Currently, she's probably at 95% making it onto a pad with the poop, and 99+ with trying. Pretty damn unusual for a chicken, or so I've been told.
What's the name of your chicken and do you have a picture perhaps? I'm genuinely curious. I've heard of an old acquaintance who also had a pet chicken, but it's just hard to imagine.
Her name is cricket. She's what's called a "midnight majesty" marans. I don't have a picture with me currently, and I know I'll forget by the time I get home. But she's this gorgeous black that gets a green iridescence in the sunlight.
She's called cricket because when we got her, we had to drive all day and it was night time on the way home, and she was making cute little cricket noises the whole way. She's old enough now that it doesn't sound the same, but it was the trills that sleepy, contented chickens make. She was small enough to just sit nestled in my kid's hand at the time.