Senegal Parrot Information and FAQ

[Blythewing]

Red Bellies...would there be any use in doing an Info and FAQ on Red Bellies or does most of the Senegal "stuff" apply?

[cornettocockatiel]

thanks! Great help!!!

[Lizzie]

Hi everyone

Quick question out of curiosity, on the colouring of my Senegal.
I have looked it up on Google but found no answers and did not see any mention of this in your articles.
My Senegal who is 5months old has yellow spots on its head, do these go away and has anyone ells seen this before?

Regards,
Liz

[Michael]

Dunno, never seen one like that. I guess it's just special. It may or may not go away after first molt. But generally whatever the plumage looks like after first molt it will remain thereafter.

[zezi]

Hi,I'm a new member here.
in our country there isn't any young Senegal parrot.I decided to buy a couple to reproduction them.now
I have a couple of Senegal, and I like to know How can I do that?

[Rebeccaput23]

Hi everyone, my name is Rebecca. I have a senegal parrot named, Pettie. I rescued this little guy from a woman who neglected him. When I first saw him, his feather's were dirty and he had a huge swore on his tail the size of my thumb nail. He was always quiet and shaking in the corner of his cage. A few weeks latter after I brought him home. I gave him a bath, which he didn't like so much. I clipped his nails and trimed his beak and boy, was he handsome! I fell in love with him the moment he clung right to me. Although he doesn't care for my mom or brother much, but he does like my dad for some reason? I often wondered if the person that hand raised was a tall tann man with a mustache.lol! Today, Pettie is a happy spoiled rotten baby boy. He's even getting better at taking baths sence I reward him with a treat afterwards. Pluse his swore is completely healed with the help of our vet.

[Laurie in Torino]

What a wonderful site and this is a fascinating page. Thank you all. Mona, I'm particularly interested in your opinion, as we have a flighted male Senegal. He is 7 years old, flies every morning very joyfully around the house, and weighs 180 grams (6.3 ounces). Everything I read tells me this is slightly overweight, though he looks very much in form (no "birdy breasts"), and is well muscled. Is it normal for a flighted bird to perhaps be slightly heavier because of muscle development?

Thank again for so much information! Laurie

[Michael]

Some parrots are naturally bigger than others. So I wouldn't go exclusively by weight. However, Senegals do tend to overeat and be overweight. It probably has a lot to do with the arid climate they come from.

I think the birds that fly tend to be less overweight than the ones that don't. Even though they put on more muscle, they tend to burn off calories at a tremendously higher rate than idle birds. I wrote extensively about managing weight and motivation here:

http://TrainedParrot.com/Weight_Management
http://TrainedParrot.com/Motivation

If you mention what you are feeding your bird and when, I may be able to give you a better guess whether or not it is overweight from that. Of course it mainly comes down to feeling the breast (and other areas of fatty deposits) but certain patterns stand out. Senegals need some pretty careful diet management or they get really fat really quickly. They don't know when to stop eating.

[Laurie in Torino]

Thanks, Michael,

You-You eats Versele-Laga mix, which is a seed, nut, pellet mix, as his staple. In addition, he gets carrots, red peppers, fennel, and peas. He will not touch green leafy vegetables, or cruciferous vegs such as broccoli. He also loves eggs, walnuts, hazlenuts, pinoli, white-meat fish such as branzino, chicken, whole grain rye bread, and pasta. He has always been a very picky and meager eater. He will only eat in our company (when we board him - very rarely - he will eat in the company of other caged birds near him). We have always had to coax him to eat, so in no way would I say he is an over-eater. I am now going to read the articles you link. All the best from Turin, Italy

[Michael]

Yeah, in that case he's probably overweight. Watch the video in my Roudybush article to see how much a Senegal Parrot really ends up eating in half a day. I guess you can't see but it's about 4-8 medium pellets. You don't see your bird eating much because it doesn't take much to fill it up. It is probably so overfed that it doesn't want most foods but will indulge in what you offer when you're around. An almond is like one quarter of a Senegal Parrot's entire daily meal.