Retained pearl feathers but acts male

Hello all,

I’m here today to ask if it’s possible for a male pearl cockatiel to retain their pearls after their first molt. Muffin, my cockatiel, had her first complete molt and retained all of her pearl feathers. She actually molted her wing feathers as well, and regrew feathers with dots on them as a female would.

That being said, her behavior is absolutely that of a male cockatiel. I’ve been around a lot of cockatiels in my life and never once seen a femal exhibit the behavior that she does. She head bobs like a fool, beak taps everything she comes across that is solid, and sings her little heart out. I haven’t gotten her to whistle any tunes yet, but she loves her own songs.

As soon as she started this behavior around 3 months of age I assumed she’d molt into male plumage, but like I said she kept all of her pearls and even grew in dotted wings.

Is she just a Tom boy, or will she molt down the road and lose her pearls? I’ve always read that they move to adult plumage with the first molt.

Check out the video of just took of her below to see what I mean. (Excuse pickle, my macaw, that got jealous of my whistling to Muffin and decided to flap his wings and startle her...)

[ame="https://youtu.be/hUnsMZr7L1M"]https://youtu.be/hUnsMZr7L1M[/ame]

I’ve also included links to two images of her plumage and (very much still present) pearls post-molting below:

https://ibb.co/i79165
https://ibb.co/cfZZR5

(Also, that’s Big Brother on in the background. I realize now that it looks a little suspect...)

Sorry cant help about Muffin's coloring,as I am new to cockatiels with BB but she is gorgeous!
You mentioned the beak banging..I just realized that BB does that quite a bit also,especially when he is inside his "tidy bowl" feeder..he bangs away on the perch like he is John Bonham of Led Zep lol.




Jim

Hey there it looks to me like you've got yourself a Tom boy.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

Looks male. A real head scratcher

Hi, I created an account just to answer this question.

While MOST pearl males will lose their pearling after the first molt, some can and do retain at least some of their pearl markings. I have a cinnamon male that is 8 years old and still heavily pearled. I had another one, now at the Bridge, who lost most of his pearling but retained just enough to show he was a pearl.

Muffin is beautiful - and I can't see the mask very well, but he/she appears to have a full yellow mask, which is another indicator of being a male.

I had one cinnamon pearl male from the last clutch my two had and he lost most of his pearl coloring after the first molt, though kept a little of it. As for males keeping their pearl coloring, it is not unheard of but you won't know for sure unless you get a DNA test! They're pretty cheap and you can order them online, then you'll know for sure!