Originally Posted by
tnthub
What you have is a bird that is fairly intelligent, pretty good at imitating sounds, and can be somewhat bothersome in terms of how they attach themselves to people or other birds. like lovebirds, the senegal can become very attached to a single person and as such will be prone to biting other people, and they are just large enough to really hurt...
I would generally suggest against introducing another bird if you want to retain the human friendliness of the Senegal. Most likely your bird will bond closely with another bird and then start to reject the friendship of humans.
I have had conures, parakeets, finches, lovebirds, cockatiels, a bluejay and a pigeon over the years. Generally, the larger the bird the more finicky they become and the more care they require. Lovebirds, conures, senegals, all tend to become friendly and protective of a single person, or another bird. When that happens they often become unfriendly to being handled, sometimes to the point of just being nasty and mean.
We had a couple of lovebirds that didn't like me and whenever it was my turn to feed and water the cage they would follow my hands and try to attack and even a small lovebird can have a harsh bite... One day one of them clamped onto the end of my finger and I had to shake it off like a rat to get it to release and it left a nasty cut.
As such, we ended up finding good homes for all our past birds, then we waited a year, and I went abd bought myself an english budgie. He is friendly, does some limited talking, loves to ride ion the car on an open perch (I clip him myself), and is so well behaved we keep his cage doors open all the time.
Birds require exercise and stimulation on an ongoing basis. They also require a varied diet and frequent handling to remain tame. A "good" pet bird is the result of a lot of time spent.
Birds that behave badly often bite a lot and will often pluck out their feathers resulting in skin irritation.
I am not saying this type of situation will happen to you, but a bird that thinks he/she is a human usually makes a much better per than a bird who realizes he is a bird. One bird is a pet, two are birds that have a cage that needs to be cleaned and probably won't like you very much. This isn't true with all birds but Senegals are prone to this type of behavior.