New Family Member

[MissD]

I got a 2 month old, hand-raised pearl cockatiel yesterday. S/he's absolutely gorgeous and has quite the personality (won't go in the cage, but wants to play with mummy instead), but the person I got him/her from said that as it's so young, they didn't want to say for sure whether it was male or female.

I really don't care whether it's a boy or a girl - I love it just the same, but I was wondering if anyone knew when it would be possible to tell for sure whether it was male or female, or perhaps how to do so? We have budgies, which I understand are totally different, so I bought a couple of cockatiel books as a help, but it's not mentioned in them how to tell or anything so I'm just curious.

Thanks

 

[Nisha]

Cockatiels are truly lovely. My friend used to have a gorgeous male that loved to sing.
I'd love to see some pics once you have them!

This is what I found on a website I was perusing:

"In Cockatiels, the color on the cheek patch of an older male is brighter than that of the female Cockatiel or you can check underneath the tail feathers of males and look for solid colored feathers. The female Cockatiel has stripes on her underneath tail feathers. Also with male Cockatiels, they have no spots on their flight feathers."

I've also read that it is the males who develop more singing ability than the females and that there are other behavioural differences too.

There are some good articles at the National Cockatiel Society that you might find interesting.

Hope this helps.

~Nisha

 

[MissD]

Brilliant, thanks.

These pictures are a bit crap cos they're taken from my webcam, but I can try and get some with my digital later.

 

[Angel Lady]

It looks like a female to me. I was told to go by the orange patches on its ears. They said if they were dark orange it was a boy and it was light orange it was a girl. But now I dont really know. This is based on what they said a the pet store where I buy food for all my animals...

 

[-*-MicHAeL-*-]

that is definetly a male. you can tell by the amount of yellow around the orange cheek patches. females would be a lot more dull and grey

 

[b.c.f.c]

i always go by how much noise they make.if they make a lot of noise as in whistleing its a boy and if its fairly quiet its a girl.thats how ive sort of worked out how my new cockatiel was a boy.hope this helped

 

[Bloo]

What a lovely young little bird

Here is some information about sexing cockatiels

 

[MissD]

Thanks for all the replies

I think it's a little boy we have here, based on the yellow head and the constant squawking at everything, but it's still hard to tell. He's also showing a lot of female characteristics...I suppose the only way to know for sure is to wait until the first molt. It's an affectionate little birdy though...I keep getting a beak pressed into my mouth for kisses.

Here we are having a bit of a nap on mummy's laptop :

 

[Auratus]

With all the different color varieties and especially in cinnamon tiels, you really can't tell the sex by looking at color.

Some say that females have horizontal dark grey or black bars (depending on color morph) at the base of the tail feathers. On morphs like lutino and cinnamon you can't really tell.

Only true way to tell the sex of a tiel is to wait and see if it lays an egg or to do dna sexing.

 

[Lexie3787]

Well my cockatiel had orange spots the exact color of that one, and a yellow head so don't base it on that. Your best bet is just to wait and see if an egg appears in the cage someday. If its a girl, be ready to have enough eggs for an omlete. Im jk, seriously.