Hello from Alaska!

[LSH101315]

My family of 5 is bringing home a Senegal from the local animal shelter tomorrow afternoon. His previous owner was known to take in many rescue birds into her home. (She took my cockatiel when I was 14 and unable to handle the responsibility) Unfortunately she got very sick a year ago and the birds she had in her home became hard for her to care for. The shelter manager believes Bandit, the Senegal we are adopting, is the last bird she took in while she was sick. She's passed away now and some of the birds are being adopted out while others are remaining in the shelter's Exotic's Education Room. I'm a little concerned about Bandit's history because we don't know anything about him. I do know that the shelter is inexperienced with birds (they haven't had them before and Bandit is the first one they have adopted out) and has the 3 Senegals on a pellet diet with the occasional piece of fruit or nut as a treat, kept together and they aren't handled often, though they do have someone working with them on occasion.

I guess where I'm going with this is that I'm here to learn the best ways to help Bandit feel at home with us, learn to trust us, and be happy here for the rest of his life. We don't know how old he is. If he's even male. How much training he's had in the past. What he likes to eat. Nothing. It's going to be a hard but wonderful adventure.

[Wolf]

Great story ! Glad to hear that you adopted this bird and if you will post some pictures of him, we should be able to tell you if you have a male or female. I understand that you are unaware of his past, but the more you can tell us about him and what is going on in his life now the better we can help you, things like his current diet when he gets up and goes to sleep, what he does all day and so on. It would also be helpful to know about the times of sunrise and set in your area so that we can assist you if you have extra long days and nights.
Welcome to the forum, we will be glad to help as much as we can.

[LSH101315]

I'll get some pics of him after I pick him up tomorrow afternoon. I picked up a basic parrot seed mix from the only grocery store in town, and am researching what pellet food I should have my husband pick up next time he's at the closest pet store (300 miles away). I've ordered lots of toys (besides what's in the cage now), but they haven't come in the mail yet. They should be here Wednesday. I'm not sure what brand of pellets he's been eating but I will find out tomorrow. They were unable to tell me his current sleep schedule as they are only open 11-6 most days, and 11:30-4:30 on weekends. I should know more after he spends a day or two here. Unfortunately, with our location in Alaska, in the summer we can get up to 22 hours of daylight in a day and in the winter some days we only get 2 hours of daylight. Today we will have 18.26 hours of daylight. I do have a towel to put over him though. I read that he will need 12-14 hours of sleep, so I'll have to make sure I cover him and uncover him at the same time every day.
At this point he is quite the mystery. He's the only bird she had with a band on his leg, though so I'm hoping to get some information from that at least. I believe they told me it was an open band, but she didn't know for sure, so it's on my list to do fairly quickly.
He is the least trained of the three Senegals they have, but will stand on your finger nicely. He screeches a lot right now but I have a feeling that's partly due to being in a small room with two Macaws, two other Senegals, three doves and a cockatiel. He's about 8" long, BRIGHT yellow eyes, and and orange and yellow chest.

Edited to say that the shelter is doing an amazing job and I greatly appreciate them.

[LSH101315]

I've been reading about their diet on one of your posts from a while back. The one with the list of safe fruits/veggies and natural woods. We eat a lot of fruit and veggies, so having him on lots of fresh foods will be easy and we won't be using the seeds or pellets more than once a day, probably dinner. Is there a brand of pellet that you recommend most? I do most of our shopping, other than food, on Amazon.

[Wolf]

I was afraid that you lived far enough north for the rising and setting of the sun to be a problem, more about that later.

I don't feed pellets to any of my birds but if I have to recommend a pellet it is TOPS. Normally I feed gloop which you can read about here viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13666 I feed my birds first thing when they get up a fresh raw vegetable, fruit and leafy green, a different one each day followed by the gloop an hour later, they get enough of both of these to last all day long and then a seed mix for dinner.

If the band on his leg is an open band then it means that he was imported, a closed band would have the year of his hatch on it. If his eyes are already yellow then he is probably at least two years old and has already gone through puberty and is an adult bird.
There are several possibilities for his screams ranging from a simple contact call all the way to being the result of being overly hormonal and possibly in pain because of it. And this is where I started this off.

Parrots are all photoperiodic which means that light is one of the primary triggers for their breeding cycle and the second main one is diet. Parrots use day length to start breeding cycles, but the internal clock is set and reset by the twilight periods of dawn and dusk and this means that living as far north as you do that you are going to have to rely on technology for part of the year to give him an artificial solar light schedule. This means special lights and most likely some timers. I don't think that towels will provide enough shelter from the light to provide a good sleep so you will probably need regular black out covers for his cage to block enough of the light for him to sleep properly. If you don't mind, I will leave it for Pajarita to go into this in greater depth as she is more experienced than I am and can explain the light setup that you will probably need better than I can.

[LSH101315]

Thank you again! Gloop will be WAY easier for me to provide than a specialty food from out of town. I can buy all those ingredients at our Safeway easily. I'll whip up a batch tomorrow and start him on it right away. I'll stick with the seeds I can buy locally too.
I have a bunch of extra blackout fabric I used to make curtains. Making a cover from that would be simple, if you think that would work as well as a purchased cover.

I appreciate your advice! Thank you again!

[LSH101315]

I went back and was reading the comments after the recipe. I need to double check the list of good/bad foods, but if wheat berries are ok, I have a years worth of food storage I maintain and rotate through all year long, and I have about 250lbs of red wheat berries, and several 50lbs bags of various beans, among other things. Would any of those be something I could work into the gloop if for some reason I can't find the right brand of pilaf?

[Wolf]

If you go to the diet section of the forum and then use the search feature putting gloop in the search box you will be given a listing of every posting with the word gloop in it. You will find everything from different versions of gloop that you can make as well as how to convert your bird to gloop from whatever food it is currently eating. But I see no reason to not use the wheat berries. Beans are a little touchier as they do contain a toxin that is normally destroyed by cooking them thoroughly. The dark beans have more of this toxin than white beans, with the highest levels in red kidney beans. You can make gloop using just about any whole grains that you can get although some birds are not overly fond of rye. You can also use almost any vegetable and even some fruit, no avocado. Just double check it with the foods list.
Yes you can make your own cover out of the blackout material, just remember to make it so that you can allow for airflow, you want to be able to control temperature by using airflow.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum and thank you for adopting poor Bandit! Don't worry about background, it's the future that matters and not the past. One word of caution, don't think that because he/she perches on your finger without biting this will continue because, most likely, it won't. He/she is now scared out of his wits and scared birds are good birds but, once he/she starts feeling more comfortable, it will start showing its true colors - but nothing to worry about, everything can be worked out with patience, persistence and love. Another word of caution, senegals are not known for becoming 'family' birds, they are known as one-person birds and highly jealous of anybody who can present competition for its chosen one's affection - and they bite real hard.

[LSH101315]

Here's the first picture. In most of these, he's still in the transportation cage the shelter loaned me.