southsamurai,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

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