which bird to keep with senegal

[ajinkya999]

hi
i have 1and half year old senegal female...
now i want to add another bird in my house which bird should i keep with it...
i know small bird will be killed so was thinking of big bird like eclectus or african grey...
any suggestions????

[Wolf]

This is not the easiest question to answer especially with so little information to go by. For instance how long have you had your Senegal and has she gone through puberty yet? Things about the lifestyle that you live and the birds schedule. Things like the diet of the bird that you have, how much time you devote to one on one as well as out of cage time with the bird that you have as well as when you have two birds. Things like how touchable you want them to be as well as how much interaction between the birds you are hopeing to achieve. There are so many things that will impact the right answer to this question and many of them may appear on the surface to be unrelated or of no consequence but in the end actually have a major impact.
However, I will try to answer as best as I can given the current information.
To begin with, if your Senegal has not yet gone through puberty which usually happens between the ages of 2 and 5 years of age with the male normally maturing earlier, I would recommend that you not get another bird until this one has gone through puberty as you will not know her true personality until then. Best to keep working with the bird in hand and continue researching for now until she is an adult bird.
Senegals are not the easiest bird to find a companion for as they are normally extremely jealous of their chosen human and do not readily accept any intrusion on their time with them. They are utterly fearless and will gladly attack any animal, bird or human that infringes on this time or that they perceive as a rival for their humans attention. Even getting them a suitable mate is difficult as they are known to reject other birds of their own species and of the opposite sex.
A lot of this is the birds own nature and I would venture to say that a lot of it is also dependent on how you interact with the bird. If it were me I wouls suggest that you wait until you are certain that she has gone through puberty and then try to match her up with a suitable male companion of her own species or of a closely related species. This is just my opinion, of course.

[Pajarita]

Yep, Wolf hit the nail on the head. The only chance you have of a Senegal getting along well with another bird is if this bird becomes his/her mate or a bird that is not perceived as competition for her human's affections, otherwise, you will have to take them out separately and watch them like a hawk. And this would definitely be the case with a gray or an ekkie.

[ajinkya999]

ohhok....
to be very frank i dont know what puberty is.....????
i have senegal in my office and she is out side of her cage whole day...
i dont want to put both of them in same cage but i have read that senegal is also a mate killer and can easily kill small bird like conure....
so was thinking of big bird with him

[Pajarita]

Puberty is the age when a juvenile becomes a sexually mature adult.

A Senegal would have no problem attacking a larger bird. They are fearless.

[Wolf]

I may be wrong, but I have a hard time seeing a Senegal as a mate killer. I have no doubt that it can and would possibly kill another Senegal that was put in the same cage with it and they were not mate bonded. Many people make the mistake of thinking that just because they are the same species and of opposite sexes that they will mate bond, but this is not always the way that it works. Senegals do not always accept the other bird as a mate and if forced to live in the same cage with a bird they are not mate bonded to may well kill the other bird while trying to defend its territory. That does not mean that it is a mate killer. That means that the humans responsible for the care of both birds did not pay attention to what the birds were telling them and made a horrible mistake and are blaming their mistake on the bird. So sad.

[JaydeParrot]

Personally, if I was to go for a bird to fit in with my Sennies, I'd probably either chose a pionus or a female timneh african grey, the main reason being that both of these birds are not too big but big enough to fair well if attacked by a sennie. Pionus are generally known for being very mellow birds and at around twice the size of a senegal it should be able to take care of itself if the senegal tried to attack. Pionus also are known for their calm nature, meaning it's less likely to attack back or become jealous of the Senegal.

I've only ever had Sennies, the bit about pionus is only from what I've read, it sounds like you're getting along fine with your Sennie, just make sure you really think about it before getting a new bird, even with the best of intentions your bird may just not want to befriend it's new roomate- E.g.- Kili and Truman.

[Wolf]

Kili and Truman are not really friends and I have seen Kili attack Truman on some of Michael's videos. I don't know how often this happens or how aggressively she attacks him. I also don't know how closely Michael has to watch them when he has them out together.

[Pajarita]

As far as I know, Kili has never accepted Truman, which is typical of sennies. My male sennie can be out with any bird and, although he will not really interact with them, he will not attack them and, sometimes, will even fly with them. But my female does not accept any other bird on me and will go out of her way to attack the ones that do ride my shoulder even when they are not on it to the point that she will fly like a bat out of hell when he sees anybody going for the door to the canary room just so she can attack my GCC which she hates because I spend a couple of hours a day with her on me. She is not sooooo bad with Isis ARB because she usually just follows me around the house flying and hardly ever rides my shoulder -but I have to watch her like a hawk.

[Michael]

I have taught Kili and Truman to tolerate each other but they are by no means friends