Boy or Girl

[gracebowen]

Is Rex possibly a girl?

 

[SilverSage]

Yes it is possible. Sexing of cockatiels gets pretty involved with the mutations, but $19.50 and a couple of days to Avian BioTech will give you a solid answer

 

[gracebowen]

I might do that later unless I find eggs. Im not encouraging it.

I cant right now my central ac just cost me $300.

 

[SilverSage]

Yikes! Repairs or is that this months bill? That number is scary!

 

[SilverSage]

Here is a really in depth article on cockatiel sexing. Unfortunately it looks to me like your bird is just pied, which is a mutation that cannot be visually sexed. Your bird is what's called a "dirty face" pied which means that it has the darker coloring on his face like he is a hen, but it actually does not indicate gender. With a pied, your best bet is DNA sexing, especially since egg laying is actually very hard on the body and should be avoided.

 

[SilverSage]

Sexing Cockatiels - Just Cockatiels!

 

[RavensGryf]

Yikes! Repairs or is that this months bill? That number is scary!

Our electric bill was $250 last month from running the a/c, and that was not even using it as much as we wanted to. This coming bill I don't even want to see. We used it way more since we've had a lot of 100 degree days and more upcoming. I can't wait for this heat to stop.

I thought that hen Cockatiels always had a lighter cheek patch, and only the males had dark orange. So that's not always the case I see, depending on mutation.

 

[SilverSage]

Correct, but there is a good section on the cheek patches in this article. I have seen many a tiel mislabeled because of that belief.

 

[gracebowen]

The Bill was just repairs. Ironically it was 30 dollars less than my electric bill this month. We keep it at 80 most of the time. Sometimes a little hotter. The ac guy said my bill should go down.

 

[Taw5106]

Here is a really in depth article on cockatiel sexing. Unfortunately it looks to me like your bird is just pied, which is a mutation that cannot be visually sexed. Your bird is what's called a "dirty face" pied which means that it has the darker coloring on his face like he is a hen, but it actually does not indicate gender. With a pied, your best bet is DNA sexing, especially since egg laying is actually very hard on the body and should be avoided.

Great info! I wish I had this in 1997 when I got my tiel Sam, she was a cinnamon pied and I thought she was male until she laid her first egg.

 

[gracebowen]

After reading the article I think it is more likely that Rex is a girl. I have no ideal of age because he/she is a found bird.

 

[SilverSage]

In that case it would be really wise to discourage any mating and do your best to control hormone levels. Cockatiels can be very hard to stop from laying once they start. I had a hen lay herself to death as a kid. Here is an article I wrote on controlling hormones in pet birds; I need to update it to include birds housed in pairs, but for right now everything in this article combined with "breaking them up" when you find them attempting to pro-create, and keeping them in separate cages, even right next to each other, should be helpful. Keep in mind Cockatiels will breed year round if given the chance.

Handling Hormones ? Silver Sage Aviaries

 

[eddieparrot5]

In that case it would be really wise to discourage any mating and do your best to control hormone levels. Cockatiels can be very hard to stop from laying once they start. I had a hen lay herself to death as a kid. Here is an article I wrote on controlling hormones in pet birds; I need to update it to include birds housed in pairs, but for right now everything in this article combined with "breaking them up" when you find them attempting to pro-create, and keeping them in separate cages, even right next to each other, should be helpful. Keep in mind Cockatiels will breed year round if given the chance.

Handling Hormones ? Silver Sage Aviaries

Hi SilverSage, does it apply only to the hens? About the hormones
Thanks
Hilda

 

[SilverSage]

No, the article is about hormonal birds in general. Hen birds are at a higher level of health risk because they actually produce the eggs. Species like Cockatiels and Lovebirds who have had generations of chronic layers bred into a lot of the lines again and again and again are at an even higher risk because of uneducated and/or unethical breeders using chronic layers as breeding stock specifically BECAUSE of their issues. It can make it really hard to get them to stop laying once they start. My tiel Bunny when I was a child laid over 60 eggs in one year. She died at around age 4. She was so out of control that she would feed 90% of her food to her foot. She was nearly impossible to keep fed because she would grab her foot and pump and regurgitate most of her food to it. It was so bad that she sliced her foot with her beak and it got infected. We almost lost her then. I was only a kid and didnt know what to do about her, I had NO idea how to stop her, so I did AAAALLLLLL the wrong things. Looking back i literally killed her with my ignorance. Eventually we got her a "friend," a just weaned male who she took on as her baby and fed until she died, but it at least stopped the laying (Which is the opposite affect getting her a male should have had, which I know now.)