Hello From Niagara Falls, Canada

[linnymarie]

Hello Everyone,

I'm so glad I found this forum and all this great Parrot Training info.
I'm already making progress with my Senegal (in less than a week) from info. I've gleaned from "The Parrot Wizard" Videos!

Looking forward to learning a whole lot more to improve my relationship with my sweet little bird.

Linda

[Chantilly]

Hi Linda and Wacky! Welcome to the forum!

[Pajarita]

Welcome to the forum! There are a couple of members (me included) that are big on pois! Can you tell us the gender and age?

[linnymarie]

Welcome to the forum! There are a couple of members (me included) that are big on pois! Can you tell us the gender and age?

Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum.
Wacky is a 5 year old male Senegal.
I've had him for approx. one year and during all that time he has been hubby's chosen favorite person even though hubby does nothing for him. He loves the sound of hubby's voice even when he's not even talking directly to Wacky. All hubby has to do is walk by Wacky's cage and Wacky just "melts". It's really pathetic to see...lol but since I've been using the target method Wacky has really warmed up to me. I've see huge improvements in him in less than a week. I can get him to step up and I can now give him scrinches without getting bitten. He also takes food from me without biting as well.

I'm so happy because I'm the one who does absolutely EVERYTHING for him and it made me feel so sad that he was always lunging at me and trying to bite me.

[Pajarita]

I HEAR YOU!! Rotten brats will choose who to love without taking into consideration who is a slave to their needs! I have three birds that prefer my husband to me and he has to be literally bullied or shamed into spending 5 measly minutes with them! Bunch of ingrates is what they are!

But, as you already figured out, with patience and perseverance, one can establish a relationship with them. It might not be as the 'chosen one' but it can still be a good, friendly and rewarding relationship. Kudos to you for not giving up!

[linnymarie]

Wow... 3 of your parrots like your husband better? That's crazy. I don't even encourage hubby to spend time with Wacky anymore especially now that I am practicing the target training with him. (The bird that is!....lol).

As well as using the target training with the clicker, I also put Wacky in my office so he sees me more than hubby. I also switched up his cage. I think the change in cage and change in location helped to lesson his territorial aggression. I'm trying all sorts of things as I almost decided to give up the bird as he was biting me so hard he was drawing blood. I was afraid of him and I was heart broken.

[Wolf]

I have a female Senegal that came here at about 5 years old after running away from an abusive home. At the time the only thing that I knew was that she was some sort of parrot and that if I did not allow her to come in that she was going to die. So she came in and I borrowed a budgie cage and set about learning what she was and what to feed her. Once I finally discovered what she was and what to feed her I then built her a cage, it was a great cage 5ft. tall and 3 ft. square with a removable tray on the bottom. Un fortunately it was made using galvanized mesh s I replaced it with a powder coated parrot cage and although it is over all the same size it doesn't have the interior space that mine did.
When she first came here she decided that my Lady would be her special person which was fine with me, although I take care of all of the animals. Again this is not a problem, but she needed time out that my Lady could not provide so I did and she bit me relentlessly for almost a year, so much that both of my hands and forearms were completely covered in her bites where she had removed little eighth in round chunks of flesh form me. Then one day she decided that I would be her chosen person instead of my Lady, but she still bit me as much as ever. After close to another month of this she actually ask me to scratch her head, but everytime I reached down to scratch her head I was met with a gaping beak, I decided to just trust the fact that she was asking so I did not pull my hand back and sure enough she struck, grabbing my finger in her beak, but she just held it, instead of biting down and then I felt her tongue tapping my finger, but no pain. She apparently wanted to see if I was willing to trust her after all of the biting and although she will still bite me once in a while she rarely breaks the skin or just barely. She is a wonderful and very loving bird who rarely wants more than to perch on my shoulder or hand.
Their may be something going on hormonally at the age of 5 years as this was the time that all of this went on with Kiki too. I do know that they normally go through puberty around 2 years of age but that they don't reach sexual maturity until they are 5 to 6 years old.

[Pajarita]

The three parrots that prefer my husband had all been kept by men before -that's why they automatically leaned toward him instead of me. But they are all my friends now. Pookey TAG would step up, ride my shoulder, rub her face on mine and kiss me; Isis Redbelly, which has been here 18 months, spends her mornings with me, either following me around the house as I do my early morning chores or riding one of my shoulders (the other one is taken up by Codee GCC) and, this morning (which by sheer miracle my husband was up early), she actually took turns on both of us (something she had never done before!); the new girl, Sunny Sun Conure, which has only been here a VERY short time, is already asking me for scritches, dancing with me, stepping up and riding my shoulder for little whiles. It's just a matter of persistence and patience...