Senegal started attacking all of the sudden

[Starky]

I have a male Senegal, he is 3 years old. I had his since he was a baby, hand fed him. Usually he is doing great, no issues (not taking into consideration usual senegal moodiness). All if the sudden he started attacking me, biting my face, neck and back. There were no triggers or sudden movements when it started - he was just sitting on my arm, we were whistling to each other. I got up and he attacked, which was unusual as I got up and walked with him sitting on me before. This morning when I came in to bring him his fruit and veggies and change the water, he attacked again. This time prior to attacking he was bobbing his head side to side and up and down. Is this hormonal jump? Any advise on how to handle this? Thanks!

[Pajarita]

Hi, Starky and sennie, welcome to the forum. First of all, I am very sorry you are going through this. I feel for you because, in my personal experience, male sennies can be super aggressive and, because they are also stubborn and fearless, they can do a lot of damage with their little beaks. I've cared for lots of parrots, from budgies to macaws, and the ONLY bird that made me fear going into the birdroom was Sweetpea Senegal who, thankfully, is now my friend.

Now, if you reside in the Nothern Hemisphere, this is not Senegals' breeding season but that doesn't mean the problem cannot be hormonal because keeping them to a human light schedule and free-feeding protein food can make them produce sexual hormones not only out of season but all the time which makes the poor bird not only terribly sexually frustrated but also physically uncomfortable. There are other things that also make a difference on this like the bird being kept caged and alone for hours and hours, improper caresses, feeding animal protein, depriving it of flight (clipping), etc. So, the first thing I would recommend is for you to re-evaluate your husbandry (because, as much as we hate this fact, when a parrot is aggressive it is always because of something we did or did not do). Is he kept at a solar schedule with two hour exposure to dawn and dusk? Are you feeding right? Does he have at least 5 hours of out-of-cage and 3 of one-on-one? Is he clipped?

After you correct all the possible problems, start target training with his high value item as reward. Not more than 3 sessions of a few minutes each in the middle of the morning because the time of the day you interact with him is also important. The thing is to make his circadian cycles as close to their wild counterparts as possible - so, breakfast at dawn, interaction and flight mid-morning, rest at mid-day, maybe more interaction and more flight mid-afternoon, dinner at dusk and sleep in complete darkness.

Mind you, he will need months to get his endocrine system back on track and you might not find relief from his aggression for what might seem like a long time but, if you do everything right, he will become loving again.

PS I have found that the 'moodiness' that a lot of sennie owners believe is part of their personality doesn't really exist - well, at least none of the sennies I've cared for were moody. In my personal experience, a healthy, well-fed, well-adjusted sennie is not moody at all... I find them to be SUPER intelligent (Sweetpea Senegal is not only my best talker in terms of a large vocabulary, he is the only bird I have and ever had had that speaks cognitively), very loving and patient with humans (my Zoey Senegal is the only bird with whom I can do anything I want and never ever bites).

[Starky]

Thank you very much for your response! He is out of the cage pretty much all day - cage is open and he comes and goes as he pleases as he has his own room. He has 12 hours of total darkness to sleep. Diet is tropimix, fruit and veggies. He is not clipped and flies around. He was usually sweet and comes over for cuddles up until the day before yesterday. He spends most of the time with my husband; maybe he is jealous and territorial?

[Pajarita]

Well, the 12L/12D (12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark) is no better then a human light schedule because a) all birds produce sexual hormones with it and 2) there is no real exposure to dawn and dusk. See, the thing with avian photoperiodism is that, in order for it to work, the bird needs to be expose to the twilight that happens at dawn and dusk in order to 'turn on and off' their 'internal clock'. The different spectrum that only happens during these two events is what affects the pineal gland and the number of hours of daylight that happens between them is what tells the birds' bodies what to do and when to do it. Birds in the wild and the ones kept at a strict solar schedule do not produce sexual hormones all the time, they don't produce any during the resting season (meaning, not breeding season and called 'resting' because it's when the body is 'resting' from producing sexual hormones), then, when they hit what is called the 'point of photorefractoriness -which is the number of hours that that particular species pineal gland 'recognizes' as 'season changing', they start poducing hormones, their gonads grow and become active and their bodies 'prepare' for reproduction putting them in breeding condition. Then the breeding season happens and, again, when it hits the 'other' point of photorefractoriness, they stop.

When you keep a bird at 12L/12D, the bird produces sexual hormones all year round because the daylight hours are not only more than enough to breed but also constant. Not good.

So, again, I would strongly recommend you switch your bird to a solar light schedule because, yes, they do get territorial, jealous and aggressive when hormonal. I am going through the same thing you are but with a macaw and a large DYH because they came to me only a few months ago and they had been kept at a human light schedule and free-fed protein for years and years so the males are overly hormonal and aggressive. But I know that this is only temporary and that, by mid summer, they will stop producing homones, go into molt and get ready for the resting season.

Tropimix is not bad but I would only feed it for dinner. I prefer to feed mine nuts for dinner.