Noisy Baby Sennie

[JennyBink]

I'm new to owning birds, after months of research and waiting for my baby Senegal Niblet to be hand reared by a breeder, I finally got him home last Saturday so have had him for five days now. He's 12 weeks old and has been very well reared, right from getting him he's been very friendly and has quickly established a bond with me as his favourite person (he's a little frightened of my boyfriend but we're working on this!). I'm also just beginning with the clicker training and getting him to associate treats with clicks so this is all very early days at the moment!

In the initial few days of having him I spent a lot of time with him... just playing and giving him cuddles etc rather than trying to train him in order to get him trusting me and all settled in. He started off very quiet at the beginning of the week, he was quite chirpy and whistling etc but not overly loud and responded well when we talked to him so we encouraged this and thought he'd be well on his way to trying to speak in the near future. Over the last couple of days however he has become increasingly loud and high pitched, if he's in his cage and hears me or sees me walk past he will screech, I ignore this as there's nothing wrong with him and I don't want to reward this behaviour. He will quieten down after a short while, but when I go over to him once he's quiet he starts up with the screeching again. If I get him out he seems happy enough and runs up to my shoulder but still continues to make the screeching noises even when I try and distract him with treats or strokes, even while he eats he still makes the noise! Other than the noise he's showing no other signs of discomfort so I'm confused as to how to stop this developing into a real problem? I don't want to reward him while he's screeching, but also I don't want to isolate him by leaving him in his cage all the time. I accept that he will be noisy from time to time but just don't want it to turn into a constant problem that will cause complaints from our neighbours. I'm concerned that we're doing something wrong and encouraging this behaviour as he wasn't like this when we first got him. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Another question I have is about establishing a good feeding routine... I've decided that it may be a good idea to feed him at certain intervals in the day rather than leaving food in his cage all the time, any other Senegals owners out there who could give me advice on how often and how much they think is a good idea to feed him it would be most helpful!

Jen (and Niblet)

[Natacha]

It's normal for any pet parrot to test boundaries at one point after arriving in a new home.

For the noise, if you could reward him when he's quiet, it might help. If you see him being quiet, playing, praise him.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Is he eating well and keeping his weight up? Is it possible he's begging to be handfed? I wouldn't have thought of that, but another member of this forum had a bad experience with a baby that wasn't properly weaned and which appeared to be eating, but was just playing with the food. I'm sure that is unlikely here, but I thought I would ask.

In general, ignoring the screeching and handling him when he's quiet should eventually eliminate most screaming for attention, but if he starts or keeps calling when he is with you, I wonder if something else is motivating the vocalization. If he came from a breeder with a ton of other birds, it may be he's contact calling for the rest of his flock, now that he's settled in.

[sidech]

Over the last couple of days however he has become increasingly loud and high pitched, if he's in his cage and hears me or sees me walk past he will screech, I ignore this as there's nothing wrong with him and I don't want to reward this behaviour. He will quieten down after a short while, but when I go over to him once he's quiet he starts up with the screeching again. If I get him out he seems happy enough and runs up to my shoulder but still continues to make the screeching noises even when I try and distract him with treats or strokes, even while he eats he still makes the noise! Other than the noise he's showing no other signs of discomfort so I'm confused as to how to stop this developing into a real problem? I

What you are describing has been recorded and talked about in Eclectus. I had the same thing with my baby Eckkie, so I did tons of research until I finally found my answer (I took a long time, this kind of info is hard to find).

After maybe 2 weeks in the house, Jazz would qwack loudly everytime he would see me. From the time I came through the door at the end of the day until I went to bed, and same thing in the morning. I would isolate myself in another room, dreading having to walk in front of his cage, because I knew he would start the qwacking. He would also do it while eating, and while on my shoulder, directly in my ear. Good news is, this is perfectly normal in baby Eclectus. This is their baby scream, and they do it when they see their parents (or caretaker, like me). When they start building their confidence in the fact that they will be well taken care of, they will have food, security and so forth, the qwacking starts to diminish. In Eclectus, it usually stops around 7 months of age. Jazz is almost 7 months old now, and I would say it is about 80% better. Still does it, but it is a lot more tolerable now.

You basically have to ignore it (no eye contact, no talking, no cursing...), except if you have to be close and can't stand it. For example, when you feed him. Jazz would never stop qwacking the whole time I would prepare his food (which takes about 5-10 minutes, so I didn't have the opportunity to make him be good to get his food, so I would give it to him when he was good for about 3 seconds... Or when it wasn't feeding time, and my ears would be about to explode and I had to be near him, I would cover his cage without talking for a few minutes until he stopped. Again, no talking. It would usually take 4-5 minutes to calm him down and I would immediately uncover him. Never leave the bird covered for extended periods, it serves no purpose.

Tonight, he reverted to qwacking a bit, I got fed up and I covered him. I am happy to report that he got the message and immediately started conversing in his nice barbie doll voice. So it didn't take 30 seconds and I uncovered him. He was good for the whole night after that.

I have a feeling it might be the same for your senegal, but you might want to talk about this with someone really knowledgeable about the specie, someone who has been breeding them for a looong time, and has lots and lots of experience withweaning babies.


Hang in there, time will be your friend !

[JennyBink]

Thanks to everyone for your advice! After ignoring him when he starts this up he's already shown improvement! Perhaps he was just having an off-day yesterday. The noise was pretty constant but today he was noisy in the morning for about half an hour and has barely made a squeak the rest of the day! Apart from when I was cleaning the flat and kept walking past his cage, but even then it wasn't too bad. Perhaps I agitated him yesterday by holding back on his food supply a bit... I was considering just feeding him at certain intervals in the day rather than letting him have a constant supply of food. But perhaps instead I'll allow him to have his usual food in his cage at all times and just save the sweetcorn and other treats for training time!

entrancedbymyGCC thanks for the tips! He does give the odd gesture that suggests he's expecting to be handfed, but these are very occasional... and other than that he certainly has no problem with feeding himself! Although this could explain the noise given it seems to resurface in the morning and evening when he may have been handfed by the breeder. Also yes he was kept alongside 4 other birds in separated cages previously so perhaps he misses them! He eats anything and everything in sight so I have no wories there, the breeder actually kept him for an extra week just to make sure he was eating his seed, which was a long weeks wait but it was definately woth it as the bird is a credit to him.

Other than the clicker training which I'm just starting with my other mission is to get him interested in his toys... I've treated him to some wooden/bells and shredding toys in his cage but at the moment hes just not interested. In time I'm sure he'll discover them though!

[DavidIsrael]

I Just finished hand raring 2 senegals and 2 Meyer's.
They too had the whole "See me and scream" issue.
When I prepare their formula, they would normally loudly call for it but the smart thing to do, when you are responding to their screaming because you have no choice, is to not respond directly to them but to actually do what they are asking and only start communicating when they relax. That is if, like in my case, you HAVE to respond to their calling.

The oldest senegal in the group and one the meyer's too, had this habit of suddenly spreading their wings, lifting their heads and going really loud like seriously calling god knows who when they're right next to me. I completely ignore them when they do that, near me or in the cage I would usually wait for it to end and then I would check to see that everything is fine. It would actually make me laugh because every person who would be around hearing my senegal going CRAZY in his cage would think he's dying or something, but it was obviously him been a baby and just testing his own limits. They learn something new, they are going to try it out until they figure out when is the best time to use it.

[Imran Ahmed]

wOw you guys really seem to know alot about your pet. Unfortunetly the country i belong to just labels a pet animal as "An Animal" as if its got no worth to it.But i love my Parrot (i.e. Jeff a.k.a Alexander's Parakeet) , he really is something .
However i face the same problem, as all of you my friends. You know : "see me, then start screaming and won't calm down".
I hand raised Jeff (handfedd) and can say did a real cool job becuase in my country we don't get breeders to do it for us so i had to do it my self. Now he's quite healthy, strong and usually glides when ever he come out of the cage. But In the beginning he was quiet and use to make little noises at the time of feed like all of you mentioned earlier in your pet's case. However now, he makes those really annoying sounds and just doesn't quit. He's about 2 months old and just doesn't learn. Ive tried avoiding him, ive tried to feed him when he's quite, ive tried to let him out.... but he just doesn't stop. He's feeding on SELF once and i feed him twice becuase i still feel that he 's not fully mature to eat on his own for the entire day.

I believe that im completely confused now and don't know how to over come his loud noises. Any suggestions would be of great help