New parrot owner learning with the help of a Senegal

[Janf]

Hi everyone,

I'm relatively new to parrots. My first (and, so far, only) bird is a Senegal named Kiwi. We thought the name was original until I started reading more online - who knew that it would be so popular?

We don't know Kiwi's sex so we call her "she" and "her"with no particular reason. We got her in September 2009, at which time she was about 6 months old.

We have her in a good-sized cage between the kitchen and family room; the kitchen is open-concept so concentrations of smells/chemical/whatever are not really an issue, but if it gets smoky in that area for any reason we put her somewhere else until the air is better.

Her wings are clipped, but not too short because we don't like her thudding to the floor when she decides she's lonely and wants to be closer to us. If she can flutter-glide more than 10-20 feet from her cage, we trim her wings. We live in the sub-arctic and it would be dangerous for her to get out, plus we have lots of plants and some of them might not be good for her - hence the wing clip. With clipped wings, she has lots of freedom in the house because we rarely close her cage door during the day (we know her favourite hang-outs if she's not on the cage).

When we shower, we often take her to the bathroom with us. She has a bit of a range to work with there - she can get from the top of a (towel-covered) shelf unit, across the shower door, on to a towel hook (that usually has an old towel on it when she's there), and around the corner to a towel ring (usually empty). She can also get to the bathroom counter by climbing down her towel on the towel hook.

When we're in the family room, we have a towel-covered chair that is dedicated to her so she can hang out with us. Mostly she seems happy to just be in the same room and in the evening she climbs down the towel, hangs upside down like a bat, and goes to sleep. If she's lonely, she gets herself from her chair to the sofa to visit us.

When we're in the rec room downstairs, we have a hanging perch made from a combination of rope and toys and boxboard for her. Again, if she doesn't want to stay there, she joins us.

In the summer, we have a small travel cage that we use to take her to our 35' sailboat. Once safely inside the sailboat, her cage is open for her to come and go and we have a swing for her on the ceiling of the boat's salon (with a rope for her to get from swing to cage and back).

I think that about covers it. She seems healthy and generally well-adjusted, if sometimes moody. But that's a subject for another post in a different forum.

Jan
Yellowknife, NT

 

[Spiritbird]

Welcome to our forum. Sennies are wonderful birds. It sounds like you are doing a good job with her. Sometimes moodiness in a bird can be caused by lack of quality sleep. They do need about 10 to 12 hours of sleep in a place that is dark and quiet. No TV or music or human conversation in the room. Some people use a sleep cage for this purpose. We love pics. If you go to the technical forum you will find instructions for getting pic. on this forum.

I bet you are in the land of daylight for a long time being way up north. Still the bird needs the 12 hrs. darkness. How cold is it there now?

 

[Crazy4Birds]

Hello fellow senegal owner! Your Kiwi sounds like she's really spoiled! Here is a sight I found that helps determine the sex of sennies: Visual Sexing of Senegal Parrots

 

[Janf]

Thanks folks for the quick reply and warm welcomes!

I hope Kiwi is spoiled in a good way. I worry about not giving her a rich enough environment, especially since we both work and have travel as part of our work (we get housesitters for the pets).

I don't know if the moodiness is related to sleep issues. She is rarely moody with my husband, and rarely moody with me when he's away but gets moodier with me when he's around. I'll post more in a different forum about the details.

As for living in the north, it's the land of daylight in the summer but darkness in the winter. We don't have total darkness at our latitude - our shortest day is light from about 10am until 3pm, although it isn't necessarily bright that whole time. It's currently about -20 celsius, which isn't bad for this time of year; we had a -45 windchill just over a week ago, so -20 feels good after that. (FYI, minus 40 celsius and fahrenheit are the same temperature; 0 celsius = 32 F to give you a sense of -20 C if you're in the USA.)

 

[Crazy4Birds]

I would never get up for class in the morning if the sun rose at 10! Anyways, about moodiness, Gracie seemed to always have mood swings. I will be petting her one minute and the next minute she is growling at me. For the most part she is very sweet but when she gets moody, it seems like for no apparent reason. It might be a senegal thing. Oh, and when I said that Kiwi sounded like she was spoiled, I meant it as a good thing! I like how you have a spot in each room for her to hang out in, even the sailboat (which I am very jealous of lol).