SEXING COCKATIELS

Visually sexing your pet Cockatiel

This information is offered for those of us who, as bird owners, are still learning. Being able to determine the sex of a Cockatiel is not only obviously important in breeding but for selecting pets for those who desire specifically a male or a female bird. Unfortunately, visually sexing young birds is not always a hundred percent correct, especially with those mutations which are difficult to sex. However, there are signs that, if not completely reliable on young birds, are good indicators in adults.

Normal Gray- Females have mainly gray faces with only traces of yellow around the beak, eyes, and forehead. Their cheek patches appear duller since there is a wash of gray over the orange and their crests are gray. They have yellow spots on the underside of their flight feathers and noticeable yellow and gray barring on their tails. Males lack the tail barring and the flight feather spots after their first molt  but have a bright yellow face. Their crests are mainly yellow with gray only at the tip. The cheek patches on a male are a bright orange since there is no gray there to dull them. Normal Whiteface, Cinnamon, Fallow, Silver, Yellowcheek, Pastelface, can be sexed in the same way as the grays. That is females will have gray or brown faces, spots under their flight feathers, and barring on their tails and generally have lighter cheek patches. Males will lack the spots and bars but have white or yellow faces and crests.

Pearls - After their first molt males will have yellow or white faces and females will have gray or brown ones. The yellow face is probably your best guide at this point. Often the bird will end up a deeper gray-to-black than the usual Normal gray male.

Lutinos - These birds have no gray at all on them, their bodies cannot make the gray or brown pigments. A bird with a lot of yellow that has dark eyes and perhaps a small area of gray somewhere, even only one feather or toenail, is not a lutino but a pied. Lutinos can be visually sexed since the females will have the same bright yellow spots under the flight feathers and their tails will show a yellow on cream or cream on yellow barring pattern. Males are sexed by the absence of these traits. One note -- a very pale lutino may not show the patterns clearly, try holding a shed tail feather up to a strong light. If you have a baby lutino-pearl with spots and/or bars who loses them in the juvenile molt you know that you've got a male. If you have an adult without these markings you can be fairly certain it is a male.

Pieds and Lutino-Whitefaces (a.k.a. Albinos) - These are the most difficult to be visually sexed. An alternative method such as blood sexing, feather sexing, or surgical sexing may be necessary. Sexing by feeling the pelvic bones is generally held to be unreliable and potentially dangerous if done by an inexperienced person. Sexing in this manner generally is not accurate anyway until the bird reaches maturity and in the case of a female, has laid eggs previously. If your pied cockatiel has some dark tail feathers, it may be possible to tell by the barring or lack of barring on the tail feathers.

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