HELP Baby Senegal hissing/growling and biting

[Mariepey88]

Hi

I am new to this site and parrot owning. Long story short, i have read about Sennies for 6 months before buying my first one. I was in contact witb three different babies and it was the most gentle, soft and loving birds ever! I fell in love! I read about everything including biting, behaviour, taming and training. Even with all the researches and training, i thing im doing it wrong...

I bought Henri a little while back but never git him home till today. He flew from Quebec to Alberta. I open the carrier once home, gave him a few seconds as i wanted to take pictures and say hi before i approached him and then hell turned loose.......... He is clipped (thank god!!) He took off on me.. had to run around the house to try to catch him, gently on my knees to make him calmy step up, and he kept flyjng away and growling and hissing at me like Ive ever seen a bird doing! At one point he got his head in my sweater and it totally calmed in down so i held him there to settle him down. After 15 minutes or so, i went to sit on the couch to open my sweater and see if he was ok.. he took off again so i went to grab him to go sit back quiet with him... and then he did what i never thought a baby would do... chomped down on my knuckle, bite twice and wouldnt let go. It took me EVERYTHING I HAD to not react. Proudly i did not. Dear lord it hurts! I realise the little guy had a long day and was orobbly terrified but really?! He was a crazy tame burd at the breeder but then get here and acts this way? So either way, i did not get mad, waited till he let go, then made him step up and put him on his playpen. A few minutes later i went to make him step up to put him in his cage has i had to ho yo work. He dud ok then.

Now, throughout the day, my husband kept going to see him nice and gentle and talk to him nice thru his cage and Henri just growl and hisses his life away. Once i got back home, i went to visit a few times and same things. Back of the cage hissing and growling at me but by the end he was better. I turned off the lights in his room around 7 has we went for supper and figured he could use the rest. I left a heat red lamp on to make sure he was warm enough. At 845pm when we came back, i went to check on him and the temperature. I did not turn on the regular light. Went closer to the cage to say hi to him and again.. mouth wide open hissing and growling... was able to talk "him down" and then left and have left him alone since.

My hand hurts and my heart is broken.. when i worked at the petstore, we used to received our babies senegal and right off the bat they wanted to cudddle with you and be your best friend! You couldnt go 5 feet away from them!

Henri was orn on February 3 2016. I have the hatch papers and DNA papers plus pictures of him when whe was little. His eyes are grey aswell. Came from a breeder that had him well socialized, or at least they advertised so.

No im lost........ really lost.... do i leave him alone and dont take him out of the cage for a few days? Do i go bug him to step up on a stick? What if he bites again?

Im scared im gonna have issues with Henri.. the bite did not feel good, i realise why he bit but a 14 weeks old baby biting, clenchimg and minorly breaking the skin?!


Ugh. Please help. I have read everything i could read but nothing matches my situation?!

Thanks

I would love to hear your output Michael!

[liz]

So glad you made it to the forum. Welcome.

1 He is a baby. Consider him a scared toddler.

2 His wings are clipped which took away the only security he has of getting away when the big
human comes after him.

3 He is a prey animal and is sure that you plan to eat him.

4 He had to travel to get to you and even an adult bird would be scared after travel.

5 You are over whelming him with your attention.

6 Move his cage so that at least one perch is at face level.

7 They are terrified of hands. Hands can hurt little birds. Keep your hands out of sight except for when cleaning the cage or changing food.

8 When you have to go into is cage keep your palms down. You can talk to him while you are in his cage but don't look at him.

9 Give him time to learn about you before you try to work with him. Spend as much time as possible in the room he is in. Give him a chance to see and hear you when you are not paying attention to him. Talking to him or reading to him will help.

10 Parrot proof the room you are in the most so it will be safe when he is ready to come out and investigate his new world.

11 Keep in mind that this is a very scared baby. If you can't relate to that then think of it as any other animal. You would not try to grab a scared cat or dog. You would keep your distance until he decided to move toward you.

12 Bites from a scared baby is just him trying to protect himself from the big human. They should not be considered mean bites. They are sort of like a scared child slapping you when you get too close. That is the only defense he has.

13 When his flight feathers grow back he will be much more confident. His personality will change when he knows he is capable of getting away when the big human scares him and will calm his fears.

That is my little bit of knowledge. There are so many in this forum who know more about care and feeding. While bonding with my birds I have found that respect and love travels across rooms. He will pick up on it and start tweeting to you before you should try to interact with him.
After all you took him from every one and every thing he has ever known and put him in your world. Give him time to adjust.

I take my cue from Wold, Pajarita, Chantilly and the others in this forum with more knowledge than I have. It would be your best bet to listen to what they tell you.

[Mariepey88]

So glad you made it to the forum. Welcome.

1 He is a baby. Consider him a scared toddler.

2 His wings are clipped which took away the only security he has of getting away when the big
human comes after him.

3 He is a prey animal and is sure that you plan to eat him.

4 He had to travel to get to you and even an adult bird would be scared after travel.

5 You are over whelming him with your attention.

6 Move his cage so that at least one perch is at face level.

7 They are terrified of hands. Hands can hurt little birds. Keep your hands out of sight except for when cleaning the cage or changing food.

8 When you have to go into is cage keep your palms down. You can talk to him while you are in his cage but don't look at him.

9 Give him time to learn about you before you try to work with him. Spend as much time as possible in the room he is in. Give him a chance to see and hear you when you are not paying attention to him. Talking to him or reading to him will help.

10 Parrot proof the room you are in the most so it will be safe when he is ready to come out and investigate his new world.

11 Keep in mind that this is a very scared baby. If you can't relate to that then think of it as any other animal. You would not try to grab a scared cat or dog. You would keep your distance until he decided to move toward you.

12 Bites from a scared baby is just him trying to protect himself from the big human. They should not be considered mean bites. They are sort of like a scared child slapping you when you get too close. That is the only defense he has.

13 When his flight feathers grow back he will be much more confident. His personality will change when he knows he is capable of getting away when the big human scares him and will calm his fears.

That is my little bit of knowledge. There are so many in this forum who know more about care and feeding. While bonding with my birds I have found that respect and love travels across rooms. He will pick up on it and start tweeting to you before you should try to interact with him.
After all you took him from every one and every thing he has ever known and put him in your world. Give him time to adjust.

I take my cue from Wold, Pajarita, Chantilly and the others in this forum with more knowledge than I have. It would be your best bet to listen to what they tell you.

Liz, thank you so much for your reply! I do understand and totally agree with your answers.

I have read lots about the first time home but as explained earlier, i never expected it to be that bad.

I am not mad or holding a grudge on the bite as i well know it was out of fear. Tho, knowing now that he knows the real bite, it makes me a bit nervous.

What i dont understand is how terrified of humans he is. Yet he is a hand raised baby. Im thinking maybe he never actually got socialized properly? Like he was left doing his own thing all the time? I really dont know... I did contact the breeder and even they dont know whats going on has he was not like that at home at all. They say that yes the trvel probably shook him and to at least give him a week to settle. On the other hand, i have talked with other breeders for reference purposes and my story seems to be a "first heard of"..

When he lands on the floor and i go to pick him up, not only he knows how to step up but he totally does it aswell. We are new and I understand that...

Ugh. Makes me confused. Each of them are totally different and are complere different individual.

Lets per say he wasnt socialized properly yet hand raised, would he turn out to be similar to a parent raised bird?

Thank you

I really can use the advice

[Wolf]

Relax a bit you are overthinking this in an attempt to understand it.

First of all you met him in a place where he felt secure so he was not afraid of trying to interact with you. Then he gets shipped to you which is an extremely terrifying event for him. Then when you got him home it should have been out of the shipping container and straight into his cage and then back off and let him begin to look around from there, but since it did not go that way he was further traumatized. Since he does not actually know you yet he had no reason to trust you and the chasing him about only made it worse. A baby bird alone in a new place that it does not know, without its parents and sibling and there is a predator around has been given a death sentence and he instinctually is very aware of this. Look at a dogs mouth and then look at how your hand closes on an object and I am sure that you will see the similarities and your baby feels that similarity when you grab him. This was an unfortunate chain of events and your baby bird was fighting for his life so he is going to fight as hard as he can.

Get one of those electric oil filled heaters and turn it up on high for a couple of hours in a different room from your bird after you wipe it down to remove anything that is on the surface then use that to provide heat for you bird instead of the light which disturbs his sleep.

For now, just relax and talk to him from across the room, stay out of his cage and let him calm down. Yes I know you need to clean and feed and water him, but he needs to begin to see that you mean no harm to him so give him some space and let him see you when he does not think you are watching him and drop by once in a while to drop a piece of millet in his food dish say hello and back off. Do this for a couple of days and then we can start working on introductions and earning his trust.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum, Marie and baby!

Wolf and Liz are, unfortunately, right... there were many things that should have been done differently but it's not a lost cause. You will now have to start from a minus position instead of zero and it will take a bit longer but he will be OK.

Now, the red light is not good for birds and the space heater as Wolf recommended works just fine but, personally, I would suggest you get yourself a large heating pad (the kind that does NOT turn itself off after a couple of hours). Birds require high temperatures (and I am talking 90 degrees!) when they are hurt or sick and the best thing for this is a heating pad placed at the bottom of the cage with the cage covered on all side but the front (heat rises so, when you cover the cage, you are preventing it from dissipating out the open top and sides of it) so a heating pad is an investment every parrot keeper should make.

The cage at your eye level and against a wall (or covered on all sides but one) will make the baby feel safer (solid walls prevent predators from getting them). Place the cage in a quiet spot of the house where the baby can see and hear the humans but is not smack in the middle of the busy hub of the home (this will give him time to get used to his new home and people without getting overwhelmed). When you approach him, never do it in a straight line or looking at him directly (only predators -which all have eyes in the front of their faces, like we do, do this). Take a circuitous route, stop here and there, go first to one side, then the other, etc and always looking at him out of the corner of your eye, check his body language and, as soon as you see him tensing or backing up, opening his beak, growling or any other sign of distress, stop immediately and turning your body sideways, take a step or two back. You can either stay there not looking at him (but you can talk or sing softly -praise in a high pitched, singsong voice works well with them) until you see him relaxing or you can leave the room. The idea is to show him with your actions that you are not threat to him.

Keep him to a solar schedule and use a good quality full spectrum light (CRI 94+ and Ktemp between 5000 and 5500) in the ceiling fixture of the room where he is kept but don't turn it on until you see actual sunshine coming into the room and turn it off when the sun is halfway down to the horizon in the afternoon (this will ensure his endocrine system remains healthy and in good working order and, when we talk about endocrine system we are not only talking sexual hormone production but also the reward and happy hormones!)

Breakfast at dawn and dinner at dusk BUT, because he is still a baby, he needs not only a source of protein in his cage (I don't recommend pellets but seeds and nuts and, for babies, I would use soaked seeds -they are softer and more nutritious) but also two kinds of soft food served fresh and warm twice a day (one of them should be handfeeding formula at a pudding consistency). Once he calms down and is no longer scared of you, you can feed him the formula from a syringe or a spoon (it's a fabulous bonding tool).

Unfortunately, he is clipped so you can't really let him out in a high place (where his cage would be) because he might hurt himself trying to escape from you so you will have to wait until he willingly comes to you before you can let him out. But, if you play your cards right, this should not last too long. In the meantime, if you can get close to his cage without him freaking out, you can offer him a treat from your fingers (like a nice piece of a good quality multigrain bread or a birdy bread made by you).