BackYardChickens Forum

The first step to forming your chicken into a wonderful pet is potty training.so you can  bring your favorite chicken inside, and enjoy each others company more often, without having to pickup after him at the same time.

A few notes:
1. In order to potty train your chicken,He MUST be hand tamed this mean he can sit on your hand without assistance.(Such as holding him in place or having both hands on him).This means the chicken should sit freely on your hand, and more importantly,enjoy it.

2. There will  be accidents even after training your chicken to use a specified area to poop, just as would a dog, or any other household pet, accidents happen, you may have to pick up a few .

3.No Praise! Chickens do not do well with complex words as praise it will just confuse things, and we do not use them to tell them that they have done a good job. If you want to reward a chicken, give him a treat.The way to a chickens heart is through his stomach.

4. Patience! Training your chicken does take time, especially with complex exercises such as this, you must be patient and work with your chicken.

5. The younger the betterAs with any animal, Young chickens who have been hand tamed make the best candidates for potty training, it is easier to train them at a younger age(around 3 week's is optimal) but this is not saying that it cant be done with older birds.

Ok let's get down to business! (no pun intended)

First we will teach your chicken to poop on command,  this is not absolutely necessary but it does help a lot. Training this behavior is all about Anticipation anticipating when your bird is going to go is a key factor in training him. Many birds ruffle their feathers right before they do, some don't. watch your bird in the coop and, see how he acts right before pooping.

When you bring him inside have an area for him to go in, Such as a litter box, or paper's.

Hold your chicken on your arm, and do something idle like watching tv, or even forum'ing on BYC, watch your bird closely for signs  that he is about to go.

Side-Note:(You need a signal such as a Click,hand signal, or whistle for the next step,No words!! this will be the command for pooping, try to choose a signal that you don't use everyday , it may lead to accidents)

When you think the bird is about to go, swiftly take him to the designated area and  hold him over it, until  you hear the tell-taleSquit! use the signal that you've chosen , and IMMEDIATELY reward him with a treat.

Repeat this process when you think he is about to go, until you can give the signal for him to go!

Once you have trained the above you can move on to the next step,this one is pretty easy.

During training the above
you should have noted a pattern in timing around which your bird will poop,
when it's almost time, set the bird down on the area designated,and give the command for poop,if he goes reward him  promptly, if he doesn't do not reward him. (Only reinforce the behavior your trying to train, nothing else.) Systematically practice this exercise until he start's going on his own.

Wishing you good luck and lot's of Fun-
                                                               Mark
                                                                      (A.K.A. Hackles)

PS:If there is interest I will write another article keeping chickens as house pets just let me know!