Senegal in South Texas

[alanrodriguezdds]

I just wanted to introduce myself as a second time parrot owner. My first parrot was an African Grey named Pepper. I was 15 years old when I got her. She was a beautiful addition to our family, but sadly she died at 7 years old. I am now 35 years old and have decided to purchase a 9 week old Senegal named Samson. I have done my research prior to the purchase and have read Michael Sazhin's book The Parrot Wizards Guide to Well Behaved Parrots. I find his educated approach enlightening. My first Grey wasn't a well behaved parrot with others, only me. I hope to apply the techniques I have read and seen on youtube to have a well behaved parrot this time. Samson will come home in three more weeks. I have his home/cage ready and have done some research on foraging to aid and reduce in unwanted behaviors.

First I have several questions:
1. In a food management approach to training at what age should the parrot be fed twice daily? Is samson too young to be only fed two times daily? What or is there a "magic" age to food manage. I perceived from the book to feed young parrots with food all day.
2. Can a draft from a vent cause a cold in a parrot? I am thinking about cage placement
3. At what age to I start clicker training? is 12 weeks old too soon? That is when he is coming home.
4. The seller of samson has him on RoudyBush. I plan on keeping him on that diet. How much to feed at the two sittings? All he can eat or how much? I hope to feed veggies in the am and pellet diet in the pm.
5. I want to encourage foraging to prevent boredom. If i place sunflower seeds in blocks can I leave them in the cage when I'm away or does that interfere with clicker training when i want to reward with seeds. What type of wood can I use to make foraging blocks? I saw online that a guy was using 2x4 wood. I'm worried about chemicals and such. Any suggestions?


Thanks everyone

[Wolf]

Hi, and welcome to the forum. So sorry about the loss of your Grey. Grey's bond very deeply with their chosen human and it is not unusual for them to not accept others touching them or their human as they are very jealous as well as loyal to this human and also protective. Now their are enough differences in their individual personalities to make this worse or better, but I can only say what I have learned. Some of them will only accept their human and others may accept others as well , but it does depend to some degree on their personality. It is also interesting to note that as a whole Greys tend to be much less aggressive than other parrots. I know that this sounds contradictory and to some extent I must agree, but with parrots including Greys you are dealing with a complex, self aware, intelligent species of creature with just as much variation in their personalities as in the human species. Just my thoughts in general on parrots and more specifically on Greys. I have a 15 year old Grey female who is bonded with me, who does not accept any other animal or human too close to me or allow them to touch her.
I also have a Senegal hen of about 8 years of age. I, unfortunately, did not have her prior to puberty and in fact she was going through puberty when she came to my home asking to come in. That was about 3 years ago and she is now also bonded with me.
At 12 weeks of age, your Senegal is going to need supplements of soft foods in its diet at least two or three times each day. I would recommend that you use a good quality weaning formula for this and that you then slowly wean him onto a diet of fresh raw organic fruits and vegetables and a cooked food such as the one found here viewtopic.php? f=8&t=13666 using the cooked foods for breakfast and for all day foraging along with the raw produce and then the final meal being a quality seed mix. I do not care for pellets but if you really feel that they are the route that you wish to go then use them for the birds dinner instead of the seed mix.
Yes, at 12 weeks of age the bird is too young to use any food management techniques, which is a controversial practice at any age. When your parrot comes home, hopefully without having had his wings clipped he is going to be terrified as he will be losing all that he has ever known and entering a strange new environment with a strange new human and he will be alone which is pretty much a death sentence in his natural environment. He knows that he is dependent upon you, the strange new human, but he has no reason to trust you and so you are going to have to show him that you are not going to eat him or hurt him in any way so that you can earn his trust. This means no training per se during this time. You are essentially taking on the role of his parents and he is going to depend upon you to teach him everything that he needs to learn to successfully cohabitate with humans with as little stress as possible. This means many hours spent just hanging out with him without asking anything of him and offering him healthy treats off and on while you are hanging out with him just talking to him and studying his body language and the sounds that he makes so that you can learn to understand as much of what he is trying to say to you as you can, In the process of earning his trust and beginning you relationship with him, learning to listen to him is every bit as important as is your physical presence and your talking and singing with and to him. He should start bonding with you almost as soon as he begins to trust you, but you must remember that this initial bonding is the dependent type of bond as that of a parent and child and that it is subject to change when he enters puberty. It is the bond that is formed after puberty that you are actually looking for and will need to establish with him to have the relationship that you want.
I can't give you a specific age to begin training and really don't think that anyone else can either. What I can say is that there should be no attempt at training until he has accepted you enough to trust you and has begun the process of bonding with you. When it is time to begin training clicker or target training is probably the best place to begin.
As for foraging toys for him cut pieces of untreated 2"X4"'s will be fine, but not at first as his beak is not yet strong enough so I would look in hobby shops that caters to airplane modelers and railroaders for blocks of balsa wood to make foraging toys for him. Remember you are going to have to teach him what they are as well as how to use them, because he doesn't know anything about them.
I hope that I have managed to answer all of the questions that you have asked as well as given you additional food for thought concerning where and how to begin your relationship with your new friend.

[alanrodriguezdds]

Can you please post that link again. I tried but it doesn't work.

Thanks

[Wolf]

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13666

[alanrodriguezdds]

so basically I make the baggies of frozen food and portion out the food 3 times daily. I imagine it goes with out saying but i should defrost the food and serve the mix 3 times daily. Should I have food present all the time or just when he eats? should i pull the food after 30 mins? being such a young fellow I don't want to deprive him of food.

Do you recommend mixing weaning mixture and placing it on the food or will he become used to the taste and require it later in life to eat his mixture?

[Wolf]

I have never had to wean a bird before as mine were all adults long before they came to live with me. For that reason I would suggest that you look for Pajarita's reply as I am sure that she knows the procedure that would be best to use in your situation.
I suggest the use of the weaning formula because at this time your bird is a baby and it needs the extra nutrition that the weaning formula has in it so that it can remain healthy. The gloop also qualifies as a soft food and with my birds I leave it in the cage all day until I give them their dinner which is a seed mix along with a tree nut or two depending on the size of the bird. I also leave the fresh raw fruit and vegetables in for all day foraging. With mine the gloop and fresh produce is their breakfast as well as for all day.
I would say that there will be a period of transition where your bird would not yet recognize the gloop as food and as a result will only eat the foods that you currently give him. For that reason I would feed him his portion of weaning formula and then put some gloop in his food dish with some of what you currently feed him for breakfast mixed in with it and sprinkled on top. Perhaps a small amount of produce in another dish or placed for foraging. Then feed weaning formula for lunch and then weaning formula before dinner with the seed mix for dinner. He will basically wean himself off of the weaning formula by refusing it at which time you stop the lunch feeding of the weaning formula and then probably the dinner formula and finally he will not eat the formula at all as he is getting enough through the rest of the food.
While I am not positive that this would be the best way to proceed, I think that it will be very close to what Pajarita would recommend.

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum! Yes, that is what I would recommend. Breeders will tell you that the baby bird is already weaned but the truth is that, in the wild, baby birds are fed by their parents much longer than captive-bred birds are handfed. And, even after they leave the nest and are foraging on their own right alongside their parents, the parents (usually the father) continues to supplement the baby's own intake of food for months. I will give you an example, rule of thumb is that the larger the species, the longer it stays in the nest and with the parents so, while canaries leave the nest and start pecking at food on their own when they are three weeks old, they still get fed by the father until they are two months old while macaw babies stay with the parents (canaries don't because they are not social birds, they are territorial) until they are 4 years old and are still getting fed in the beak by the parents until they are nine months old) so, going by that, a Senegal at 12 weeks of age would still be fed by the parents. Aside from that, baby birds usually revert to needing handfeeding out of sheer insecurity and anxiety due to their losing all they know, something that, in nature, doesn't happen to adults much less babies! So, what I always recommend is to make as easy as possible on the baby by not only offering a handfeeding or two at the beginning and stopping it only when the baby refuses it on its own while also offering soft foods served fresh twice a day and leaving them there until the next meal is served. Now, gloop is a soft food so yes, you can use it for the baby but I also recommend offering other kinds of cooked, soft stuff -things like polenta, cous-cous, Irish oatmeal (aka steel cut oats), a good quality multigrain, some pastina, etc. which can be mixed with baby food (only veggies or fruits, mind you, no meat!). This is not only because they provide extra nutrition (the baby food) but also because it's precisely during weaning that babies learn what is safe and good to eat and what is not so the larger the range of foods you offer, the better the bird will eat when it's an adult.

As to training, you won't need to train with a clicker or a target to get him to step up or down, babies always want to be on you (when they trust you) and he will not only step up when you ask him to, he will ask you for it so that needs no training. What does need teaching is the step down because, as they always want to be on you, they don't want to 'leave' you but that is easily done by asking him to step down for his feedings. I don't use clicker or target and neither do I use food rewards, I get my birds to love me and trust me and, when they do something right, they get praised and loved and it seems to be enough for them because I don't really have 'disobedient' birds. But, when it comes to tricks which bring no reward to the bird from an emotional point of view, you will need to bribe because birds are not mentally programmed to obey or please anybody (it's the kind of social structure they have) so unless you give them something they want a lot, they won't do any tricks. But I do NOT agree with food management! It sounds harmless but it means that you have to make the bird hungry so it would perform and that, in my personal opinion, is nothing but vanity and cruelty. Michael teaches how to train a bird to do whatever you want it to. That's his trade and his business. He has a cottage industry and his birds are part of it so he needs his birds to perform perfectly all the time and the only way to achieve this is by making them hungry. But I don't think that pet birds should need to perform perfectly all the time... And, in any case, all you need to do is keep the bird's favorite protein food as a high value item and use it as a reward ONLY when you are training. It serves the same purpose, it works just as effectively, and it's much kinder to the bird.

As to when to start with the clicker or target... well, I always suggest people wait until the bird is a juvenile. I think that, in the long run (and, with parrots, the 'run' can be pretty long), it's much more effective than starting early. And it's not as if you are not to teaching the bird anything in the meantime. You are! Only you are teaching it the way and the kind of lessons a mother or father would teach a small child. You teach it to love and trust you, you teach it to step up and down, you teach it what "NO!" means, you teach it not to play rough (as when they start beaking and put too much pressure), you teach it what to eat and what not to, you teach it to play, you teach it what his routine and schedule would be, you teach it to go back into his cage, etc. Think of a toddler or a kindergartener and what lessons they learn at home and you would have a good point of reference.

Please let us know if there is anything we are missing or not been clear about.

[alanrodriguezdds]

I love the comments. How exactly do you teach the bird "no". If he is nipping my finger what is the correct way to stop it? Distraction or punishment…. i.e. back to perch.

[Wolf]

Just as with human children the key to teaching the word " no " is repetition. And the nips that you receive while the young bird is beaking is one of the opportunities to teach the bird this word. Now the term beaking is used to describe the exploration or you, usually your hands and fingers, through the use of its beak. It is much like the puppy who has to chew on everything or the young child who puts everything in its mouth. The young bird does the same thing and in the process will sometimes use too much pressure, when this happens you would say something to the effect of " No Bite" or perhaps " Gently" and move the birds beak or even move the bird to next to you. With a parrot the word, act or even the idea of punishment has no place if for no other reason than the bird does not understand or respond to punishment except to lose trust in you and without trust you have nothing.

[Naomaruta]

My first parrot was an African Grey named Pepper. I was 15 years old when I got her.
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