Squawking

[donnaparty]

I adopted a 6 year old Senegal Parrot (male supposedly). I have had him for one week and we have been making great progress. He is very affectionate, is doing good on the beginning of his target training, but just yesterday he started squawking loudly. Normally he loves to make vocalization and sounds back and forth. This is the first time he has really done this and this is day two.

Can I get some pointers of what the source might be? He is still affectionate, but not doing other vocalizations right now.

[Wolf]

You don't give one much to go on, but this behavior coming out of the blue is most likely him telling you that you are not giving him enough food.

Some Senegals don't hit maturity until their fifth year, but this may vary to some degree, so this could be sexually related. I think that I would start with food and/or diet and make sure that all is well with that first.

[donnaparty]

So I don't think not having enough food is the issue. Yesterday I also started giving him CHOP in addition to the dish of his regular food. He LOVES the chop. I am noticing most of the squawks are happening when he is heading to or leaving the dish with the chop in it. So I suppose it is possible he is just excited or maybe telling everyone to not touch his chop.

Does that additional information help? Also the house he came from he was an only bird and he is still an only bird here. I noticed on some other post that calling for other birds was a cause of squawking also, don't think that is a cause here.

[Wolf]

I don't know what CHOP is, it appears to be some brand name, but I will try to look it up and find out what it is. Based on this last info, I am also of the opinion that lack of food does not appear to be the issue.

The lack of another bird does not, however, rule out mating calls. He has recently started his normal breeding cycle, assuming that he is in the northern hemisphere and is exposed to normal (bird ) light schedule. It also does not rule out his calling to you for affection, you are after all his flock and he is a flock person.

[Pajarita]

Chop is the generic name of any dish that has chopped raw vegetables combined with cooked whole grains in it (I feed gloop which is made with cooked vegetables, instead of raw).

He's lonely and wants to come out of the cage and that's why he screams. Sennies are usually quiet birds but they can scream same as any other parrot. My Tobita was given to me because she screamed so much that the owner was afraid she was going to be evicted from her apartment. Going by the short amount of time you've had him (meaning, you are still firmly in the honeymoom period) and the fact that he already started screaming, I bet that was the reason why he was actually given up (people say they no longer have time for the bird but, what they don't tell you is that the 'not having time' for it translates into a bird that screams for it -LOL).