parent reared senegals

[ocatoro]

evening all...

been considering adding a senegal to the house next year some time. we already have a lovebird with a giant personality who is a joy to watch and interact with (most of the time)

our lovie was parent reared and to all intents and purposes, wild, when we got him nearly 5 years ago, but much to my surprise and satisfaction... I managed to earn his trust and get him hand tame fairly quickly. he's not cuddly, by any stretch, and only likes a beak scratch not anywhere else... but we sort of have an arrangement and it works

due partially to cost, but mostly the success with Burd the lovebird and the satisfaction that has brought in earning trust, I'd like another parent reared bird rather than a hand reared one, but haven't seen any for sale during the past week or so I have spent trawling through google.

any ideas where to find one? any recommended breeders?

(and compared to the £400 or so for hand reared ones I've seen, what should I be paying for a non tamed baby senegal?)


.... also... any experience of keeping a senegal and a lovebird? likely to get along? trouble?

 

[JamesC]

I never thought about looking for a parent reared parrot. I think most breeders would hand raise so as to maximize the return when they sell them. And knowing the personalities of Senegals, you might have a wild one on your hands if you do get a parent raised bird. Senegals are kind of....intense. They tend to have very strong personalities. I don't think that I would want to try to tame a parent raised bird. Not without investing in some good protective gauntlets to protect my fingers. They may be small parrots but they can BITE. Powerful for their size. I've bled a number of times from mine taking chunks out of my fingers.

As for getting along with your lovebird, I would not let a Senegal interact with a lovebird at all. They tend to be anti-bird and could easily maim or even kill your lovebird. As a person once said on the forum that has a pair, Senegals don't even like other Senegals. Plan on keeping them segregated. Separate times out of their cages would be recommended.

 

[ocatoro]

I'm surprised to hear that, most of what I have read suggests that a hand reared bird is more prone to problems like plucking/screaming and is more demanding for constant attention.

fair enough on the not playing nice... quite easy for one to live in the study (I'm doing a degree in my free time so spend a lot of time reading and playing with the bird already) and for one to be in the living room or dining room, where we also spend plenty of time.

 

[LordTriggs]

from what I've seen of the difference between a hand-reared and parent-reared bird the main differences are as follows;

Hand-reared birds are more open to humans from day 1.

Parent-reared birds take more time but can be as tame as a hand-reared bird (this I have known myself)

Hand-reared birds appear to be easier to socialize with strangers due to their open nature towards humans as a whole.

Parent-reared birds get some bacteria from parents which they don't from a hand-feed so are slightly hardier (though I haven't seen proof of this)

Hand-reared birds can spend their life thinking they're a human. This is one I find best to take with a pinch of salt. I think people take the bonding to humans a sign they think they're human. I just think due to the openness and sheer amount of hand-reared to parent-reared companion parrots people think over-bonding is unique to hand-reared birds but in reality any bird can over-bond.

I noticed you're in the UK. Check out Birdline, they're a rescue and have a couple senegals right now. None are that old from what I can tell so may be in idea to enquire. Unfortunately senegals aren't flashy enough. Over here it seems to be either tiny budgies and tiels sold by the bucketload or the big birds like Greys and Macs sold with everything else being on the back burner