Indian or African Ringneck?

Iholm5

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Apr 22, 2015
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Milwaukee, WI
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Proud parront to...
Tiki (U2), Zelda (GCC), Bender (Tiel), Pickles (Parrotlet), Pax (IRN), Goku (Sun), Jack (Caique), Moko (Crested Gecko), Goose (Red Lored Amazon)
paxwell_zpsbcqqcf3r.jpg Photo by patrickm510 | Photobucket

So we got Pax about a month ago and we assume him to be between 7 and 10 months of age. The picture above is one of the best we have of him and I'm wondering if anyone can help distinguish if he is an African or Indian ringneck, and what differences there might be. At his age, is there any distinct way to tell if he will be male or female? We would love him to grow a pretty ring but a girl is just fine too.

Thanks for any help.
 

Dinosrawr

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Aug 15, 2013
1,587
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Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Avery, a GCC born on March 5th, 2013 & Shiko, a blue IRN born on February 25th, 2014
At his current age, you have very little chance of knowing if Pax is male or female. They don't ring out until at least 18 months of age, so you still have awhile yet to go. Some can make educated guesses based on the shape of the head, but it's not fool proof.

He certainly resembles an African RN more than an IRN to me. Here's a picture of Shiko at 8 months:



As you can see, his beak is bright, bright orange on the top. His bottom beak is dark. ARN's tend to have darker, smaller beaks on top and bottom and this is mainly due to their difference in size. Indian Ringnecks are larger and on average weigh more because of it. So weighing your bird could also help. They tend to have shorter feather lengths, too.
 

RavensGryf

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Jan 19, 2014
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College Station, Texas
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Chantal (above) is right on the differnces between ARN and IRN. The IRN are much more commonly seen too. The beak does look African, but I haven't noticed if IRN have dark beaks at that age, but as you can see Shiko already had a bright red beak at that age.
 

Dinosrawr

New member
Aug 15, 2013
1,587
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Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Avery, a GCC born on March 5th, 2013 & Shiko, a blue IRN born on February 25th, 2014
I think most IRN's start with pretty solidly orange beaks, and then the bottom beak blackens out as they age, too. If I compare pictures of Shiko of when I first got him to now, it's a pretty stark contrast:

Second day home -



A photo from a month ago -

 

wrench13

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Nov 22, 2015
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Shiko is so beautiful, love the colors. IRNs get pretty big huh? How much does Shiko weigh?
 

Dinosrawr

New member
Aug 15, 2013
1,587
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Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Avery, a GCC born on March 5th, 2013 & Shiko, a blue IRN born on February 25th, 2014
Shiko is so beautiful, love the colors. IRNs get pretty big huh? How much does Shiko weigh?



Thank you [emoji4] He's not super huge, though in a few photos because I'm so small he looks massive. I think they're relatively big in terms of small bird sizes, but if I feel like poi's and caiques have more of a solid build. Shiko is built like a runner - sleek and very lean. He's about 120 grams give or take [emoji4]
 

wrench13

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Oh that is substantially smaller then Salty, who is around 270 gr. He has the long long tail, right?
 

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