Hello from Ottawa, Canada

[Sene]

Hello everyone, we adopted our first Senegal parrot about 2 weeks ago. We hadn't initially intended on adoptung her when we saw her advertised on Kijiji, my daughters just wanted to visit a senegal parrot. When we saw her though it turned into another matter. We fell in love and felt badly for the small cage that the owner said she had been living in for the past 5 years. We brought her home with us that afternoon. She has just started to settle in with us the past few days and doesn't scream anymore it seems. Poor wee thing, but we think she'll be happy with us now. We bought her a much bigger cage and feed her a bunch of veggies, fruit and nuts ever day. I'm trying to get her to eat her pellets that i mixed in with her seed mix that she use to eat, but thus far she doesn't eat it unless we hand feed it to her.
We have her first vet check up tonight and my husband really wants to have her wings clipped. I am on the fence from all i have read here. The biggest issue for my husband is that she lands in our dining room table and leaves her droppings occasionally. I know, I should just put more effort into keeping her off the table. I was also worried that she'd get outside through an open door. Our house is open so it isn't possible to have her in a room with the door closed.
Anyway, i guess i know everyone will say not to clip her wings - I have until this afternoon to decide.
I just wanted to say how much we are in love with our little sweetie, and i love this website where I am learning so much off of all of your posts.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum and thank you for adopting instead of buying a baby. As to clipping or not clipping, you guessed right, we are all pretty much against it here and I am sure you have already read all the reasons why we feel that way. My husband is also of that mind-set: birds in cages and clipped. It's an old-fashioned way of thinking from when we did not regard animals as anything else but possessions that were put on this earth to benefit us. Thankfully, bird keeping has evolved greatly during the last 15-20 years and we now know better - but I guess some people find it hard to change a belief that was ingrained into them.

Poop on the table is nothing! I know it sounds funny when you say it that way but the truth is that poop is pretty much ubiquitous when you live with a bird because you will find that there will be poop on the floors, the chairs, the window sills, the beds, etc. The alternative is to keep a bird caged his/her entire life and that's not to even be considered!

As to houses with an open plan, yes, they do require some tweaking to work out for a flighted bird (like putting a screen or curtain in front of the doors or building a buffer zone) but, like I always say, if you don't have a barn and corral, you wouldn't dream of having a horse and it's the same with birds.

Now, please be careful with the parrot and the children because sennies tend to be one person birds and they will attack the 'competition'.

[Wolf]

Well, I suppose that I could bring up all of the pros and cons to clipping but I don't think that it would do any good as if you have read as much as you say then you already know these things. So I will leave you to make your best choice, and wish you well.
Instead I am going to try to share something with you that I found a while back and like a lot and hope that you will like it as well. Ok, that way doesn't work so I will try another way.

http://www.african-grey-parrot.com/A-Pa ... ights.aspx

Please check out this link as this is what I wanted to share with you.

Just checked to make sure that it worked and it does.

[Sene]

Thank-you for your replies Pajarita and Wolf. I did like that link you posted Wolf, I will do my very best to ensure that her welfare is held up to the highest standard that I can offer
I thought maybe you'd be curious as to what happened...When we arrived at the vets office I explained our situation to her (because my husband was in the room with us - actually the whole family was), that my husband wanted her clipped but I did not think it was right - She explained to my husband that clipping the wings didn't mean that she wouldn't be able to fly, just wouldn't get height...she checked her over, telling me that she was in good health but a little overweight. We expected this as her diet has been strictly seeds for the past 5 years. Hopefully her next checkup will have her more on track there as I've amended her diet (still in progress, I will possibly post questions in the other area later). When we got home we discovered that she can indeed still fly around the house, so I expect that she took what I said seriously and helped me out by not cutting her flight feathers too much. So, it all worked out thanks to her quick thinking, and now we're working on training her to stay off the dining room table when she flies around. She seems to have to put a little more effort into flying, but that does not stop her in the least and I think in a few months we'll be able to stop the landing on the table and the issue won't be brought up again about clipping wings.
She also said we should test her for ... I believe it was chlamydia? We didn't have the test performed, but I thought I'd see what you guys suggest. Should I have this test done? The original family that owned her looked in perfect health...so I am assuming that I don't have to spend the $120, but what do you think?
Thanks again for your guidance. I always look forward to reading posts - there is so much to learn, and no better place than this.

[Harpmaker]

Welcome Sene! What is your new buddy's name?

When I first got my Corsair, her wings had been clipped by the breeder. She did what we called (with a nod to "Toy Story") falling--with style. It sounds like your bird may be doing better than that.

Good luck to you and your family with senegal!

[Sene]

Thanks Harpmaker. Our sweet bird's name us "Birdie". That's what her original family named her and she seems to know that's her name, so my daughters and I decided to keep it. She seems to be adjusting well to life with us so far - we all (minus the husband) handle her equally so we're hoping that she'll attach to all of us equally. She definitely still flies around the house - there's no falling for this one. I absolutely love that vet! She managed to make both myself AND my husband happy. Who would have thought?

[Wolf]

You asked about whether to follow you vets advice and have Birdie tested for chlamydia psittacosis. This is a highly contagious disease which can be passed on to humans. Frankly I would ask the vet what her reasoning is for advising this test, it is possible that she saw something which aroused her suspicians or she may just like to do it as a routine test. Some birds show symptoms and others do not and neither the test nor the treatment is 100%. Again I would ask why she recommends this test and take it from there.

[Sene]

The vet said she'd test for this because it's a newly aquired bird and I have children. There are no symtoms and this was purely for safety precautions. How common is this disease?

[Wolf]

Rather than trying to advise you on this matter and risk giving inaccurate information, please use this link for more information.

http://www.birdclinic.net/avian5.htm

I hope that this will prove to be useful to you.

[Pajarita]

I don't know where Wolf got the info that the test or treatment for chlamydia are not 100% but that's not the information I have and I had an epidemic of it in my rescue 5 years ago which was not only treated by my avian vet but also monitored/inspected by USDA and given the disease information and protocols for treatment and disinfecting by their main epizootiologist in Washington and, taking into consideration that everything went exactly as he said it would and that it matched all the other information I got from the internet, I have no reason to doubt it's correct. So, in my personal experience and opinion, the test is accurate and the treatment cures the disease. The only doubt is whether birds that had it could get it again but, as these birds become carriers and can pass it on to other birds and people (and this is the reason why your vet wants to test your new bird for it and I agree with him/her that it's a VERY good idea to do it) when under stress, periodic treatments (every two years and whenever there is more than usual stress) are to be done. But these treatments are not necessary if the bird tests negative for it.

Now, don't take this the wrong way because it's not that I am wishing I'm right (I'm not, quite the contrary!) but I seriously doubt she will not become a one-person bird which will, very likely, bite everybody else. All parrots tend to be that way but there are certain species that seem to be always like that and, as far as I know, senegals are one of those. People will say 'their' Senegal is not but, to tell the truth, I always doubt those birds are healthy and content because every single one I've seen and known personally are like that. They might not start out that way but they all end up like that.