Help with my Senegal Parrot.

[Pajarita]

Ok, so he is in the room where his two humans spend most of their time and that's good BUT this means that he will be exposed to a light schedule that is not a strict solar one so I suggest you put a sleeping cage in the bedroom where the GCC is and a day cage in your bedroom. This way, you can leave the sleeping cage uncovered and he will be exposed to dawn and dusk and his endocrine system will be in tune with the seasons, as it should be.

His diet should consist of cooked whole grains mixed with veggies and raw produce for breakfast and all day picking and a measured quantity of high protein food for his dinner; this can be seeds, avicakes, nutriberries or pellets, it's up to you, but I don't think that pellets are the best dietary option for parrots and use a lower protein mix of seeds (for my sennies, it's the same one I use for the larger species, 50% cockatiel mix with some striped sunflower seeds and 50% small psittacine mix which is safflower-based) and a tree nut -usually, walnut or almond but also pistachio, filbert, brazil nut, cashew, etc

Now, as to getting him to bond with you, if he is already comfortable with you, guys, in the same room (which I assume he is), you should start him on a strict routine and some target training. The strict routine is so he feels more comfortable with his life (knowing in advance what is going to happen and when and then have this come to be exactly as expected gives them a sense of control. Your participation in these routines, doing the same thing and saying the same thing all the time, gives him a sense of 'flock interaction' which goes a long way toward his accepting you and your girlfriend as part of his family (timing of these activities to coincide with the wild parrots biorhythms does it, too). The training helps more you than him because it will give you a good opportunity to not only engage him in something that will provide a reward (high value item) which will endear you to him but also to observe his body language and learn how to 'read' him.

A good day should be as follows: exposure to dawn, lights on when sun is out, breakfast, let him out of his cage for flying (this will have to wait until he molts his clipped feathers) and interaction time with a 10 minute training session and just company (talking, singing, giving a treat, etc), rest at noon, interaction when bird becomes active again after the noon rest (around 2 pm but it depends on the individual), training session, company, flying time and training session right before dinner, turn off artificial lights when sun is halfway down to the horizon, serve dinner in sleeping cage, allow bird to eat dinner and roost and go to sleep when night falls. Now, I realize that this does not quite 'match' your own schedule but, unfortunately, birds are not like dogs and cats that adapt to our lifestyle, we need to adapt to theirs.

[Gab&Den]

Please explain the questions, suggestions, and assumptions you have in better depth. Please read what I have said before asking what I have answered previously.

Earlier, you stated "you're doing things wrong" , reiterate, because by saying that and not explaining what I am actually doing is counterproductive. What is a long time? I've only had him for four months.

He's not really comfortable with us yet. He has only been in the room with us for about a month. I'll just call up the breeder and see if they can also shed some light on the situation.

[Wolf]

Thank you for this last set of answers they helped me a lot and I am finally beginning to get a picture, so to speak, of what is occurring in his life. At 4 months of living with you he should have been much more trusting of you than he is, but due to the fact that he was hatched in January and you didn't get him until December, when he was almost a year old, I would guess that he was not socialized by the breeder as well as he should have been. This is not your fault , but you get to work with this. If he was not properly socialized then it is quite normal for the trust and then the bonding to take longer than normal. And I did note that you mentioned this as a possibility in your first post. I just could not say because I did not have enough information to make that assessment.
I agree with Pajarita that you might want to put a smaller "sleep" cage in the other room so that he can interact with the other birds some and have a solar light schedule or if he would still get as much interaction with you just move his cage in with the other birds and give him a perch in your room for training or for hanging out with you which I feel is what he needs a lot more of( I will come back to this later).
I have explained what a solar light schedule is and why he needs it. If there is anything that you need further clarification about concerning the light schedule, please ask me and I will do my best to answer your questions.
I have also briefly addressed diet, but I will go over it again briefly and then wait for any questions that you may have.
Your parrots should be eating a mix of several cooked whole grains along with a fresh leafy green, a raw vegetable and a piece of fruit. Whole grains because they are lower in fat and protein than seeds or pellets, both of which if free fed can cause your bird to have liver, kidney and/ or heart disease. There should be enough of these items for them to eat until it is time for their dinner at which time they should receive a measured amount ( usually about a quarter of a cup or possibly a little less) of a seed mix or pellets ( I don't care for pellets) which should be removed from the cage after the bird is asleep.
The short sessions of talking to him is good but would probably prove to be more productive if you could spread this time out to encompass the whole day. I assume that you have some sort of life and also either work or maybe go to school or even both so that you are gone during most of the day. But if you could do a couple of ten minute sessions with him in the morning and then a couple of similar sessions in the evening. Then let him hang out with you until it is his dinner time, this is where I mentioned a perch in your room.
Now back to the placement of his cage.
I think that as long as he can get substantially the same amount of time interacting with you as well as time just hanging out with you that I would place him back in the room with the other birds. I think that he will do better by having the other birds for company while you are gone or can't spend time with him. Another thing that tends to help with birds that have not been socialized properly is for them to see you interacting with another bird. I quite often hear of teaching one bird a trick and finding that the second bird has learned the same trick only from watching the owner with the first bird. I have also seen first hand evidence of one of my birds learning something that the other did not see but learned it any way, I assume that this is due to the communication between the birds themselves. In this scenario I would suggest the your GCC gets worked with and then working with the Senegal.
I would begin target training with your Senegal, as at this time it will most likely help with some of his trust issues as well as help you to get him to step up when requested. To that end I am referring you to Michael's basic step up and training topic. Here is that link:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=227
The last reason that I have for recommending that he be with the other birds is due to certain usually nocturnal activities that humans engage in that may interfere with his quality of sleep.
I think that I have addressed all of the areas that I feel are lacking and needing to be corrected or added to his daily routine. These changes should turn this around and result in you having a well adjusted Senegal parrot.
Now it is your turn again, if you have questions especially about anything that I have said please feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer them to your satisfaction.

[Pajarita]

Personally, I don't think that calling the breeder will do you any good. Breeders don't regard parrots as companions, if they did, they wouldn't sell them, right? (I mean, you wouldn't sell your friend or his children, would you?) so their expertise when it comes to companion parrots behavioral problems is slim to none.