As it happens, Boosey's breeding of this species in 1957 was probably the first in Britain, if one discounts a claim for a breeding in 1886 which may or may not have been achieved. His pair was very shy and secretive, thus little could be recorded about the breeding. On fledging, the three young were calm and steady, in complete contrast to their parents. While rearing, they were fed on the usual seeds with additional hemp, plus boiled potato and carrot, bread and milk and apple and spinach beet. Boiled white fish was refused. The birds nested in a box which measured 25 cm (10 in) square and 60 cm (24 in) high.

Senegals lay three or four eggs which are incubated by the female for 28 days. Down colour of the chicks is grey. Nervous pairs can prove difficult to breed as they desert the nest at any disturbance. After successfully rearing one chick, when the male was 10 years old and the female 15, a pair belonging to J. B. Baker of Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, UK, deserted their chick at about seven weeks old after being upset by the deafening noise of a chain saw which was used nearby on two occasions. The chick was removed for hand-rearing and fed on Complan (Farley Health Products), Farex (Farley Health Laboratories), sponge cake, honey and Abidec (Parke Davis). By the age of 12 weeks, it was eating ground sunflower seed and sponge cake.

Mr Baker's pair had reared young for four consecutive years before they proved double brooded for the first time. Winter breeding was usual for this pair. In 1976, the first of three eggs was laid on January 13 and there were two chicks by February 12. In 1977, the first of two eggs was laid on January 10 and two chicks had hatched by February 6. In November of that year, the female laid three eggs by November 15 and there were three chicks by December 11. As soon as the chicks were reared the female nested again; the first of two eggs was laid by March 23. One egg was damaged and the remaining egg hatched on April 21. The next clutch was commenced on November 30. The average incubation period was thus 27 days.

Eric Callaghan from County Dublin noted that no mutual preening occurred between two males which were kept together but it took place immediately male and female were introduced (two pairs) - and not since.

In his opinion, the most definite indi­cation of sex in an individual was threat behaviour:

I have only ever been threatened by a cock bird, never by a hen. Threatening behaviour consists in the bird leaning backwards slightly, shrugging the wings outwards at the shoulders while doing so, this being accompanied by a raising of the head feathers, gaping the beak and producing a crackling sound within the beak. Even newly fledged young have been tentatively sexed from the fact that those which appeared more mas­culine looking in other ways have threatened me when approached too closely whereas a believed young hen has never done so (Callaghan, 1982).

There was a high degree of synchronis­ation in laying in the two hens. Their two cages faced one another across a room. They usually nested in winter, in spite of relatively uniform conditions of light throughout the year. The chicks were described as being sparsely covered with white down with notice­ably fleshy swellings on the lower man­dible. The young spent 67 or 68 days in the nest. They were seen to eat soaked sunflower seed within two days of leaving the nest and dry sunflower after 10 days.

The breeding life of this species is a long one. There is a record of one pair which had eggs when the male was known to be at least 40 years and the female 25 years.

In Denmark, H. Petersen was the forerunner of European breeding successes, in 1956, and C. Madsen's pair reared young in the same year. In three years, seven young were reared from 14 eggs. In Britain, E. J. Boosey's success in 1957 was the first. In 1961, T. Brosset, of Gothenborg, Sweden, reared a single youngster and, in 1967, W. and P. Ebert in Leipzig, East Germany bred this species.

Senegal Parrots have been bred in zoos in a number of countries, includ­ing the USA, India (Ahmedabad Zoo), Germany (Rostock Zoo) and France (Villars Zoo). However, considering how often this species has been im­ported, successes have not been numer­ous. It used to be so inexpensive that few attempted to breed from it, but since the mid 1970s attempts and successes have been far more frequent.