Male cere, female pelvis?

Hi everyone!

I bought a new budgie after one of my seven year olds sadly passed away. The pet shop owner was adamant that it's a female. However, his cere is purple which would mean male.

I had to take him to an avian vet last week. I asked him if my bird is a male and he said no, it's a girl from the shape of the pelvic bone. However, I've found no examples of a female bird having such a purple cere!

Also at the time I bought him (end of November), he'd already moulted into adult plumage (no baby bars) and had a full iris ring, which would indicate he's probably close to a year old now (his ring is navy and says 17).

Here he is:


First picture from the last week of November, second picture from January. (The cage is the quarantine cage, I have a larger one with branches for main use.)

I'm so confused now, the vet said female, but the cere says male. Also he appears to be around a year, but still has a juvenile cere. From what I can tell he is an opaline single factor dominant pied, so he should have a normal blue cere if male. Any thoughts?

WOW!
This question is definitely above MY pay grade!
Budgie people? Help!
I DO know that he/she is a beauty, though. Love that face... very coy and flirty expression!

P.S.
I've never heard of sexing a bird by the pelvis... that's why blood/DNA is usually needed. Hmmm...

Honestly it looks female to me.
It looks like the cere is starting to turn brown and crusty, but it could just be the lighting.

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GaleriaGila said:

I've never heard of sexing a bird by the pelvis... that's why blood/DNA is usually needed. Hmmm...

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Neither had I until the vet said it and I looked it up. Apparently it's pretty accurate for adults. I personally can't see any brown, if anything I'm seeing blue coming through in the centre. There's no sign of crustiness at the moment. The cere is completely smooth.

(Strangely, my other budgie started off with a brown cere as a juvenile, which then turned to white, then blue and pink!)

S/he is currently very ill at the moment. He was doing well since he started treatment, but has relapsed in the last hour

PS, should have said, the budgie is called Toffee.

Best and truest wishes for a recovery for your little sick one.

If pelvic exams are so telling (and it makes sense), I wonder why people bother with the DNA stuff. I just Googled it myself and there are indeed proponents, but apparently DNA is still the gold standard, besides egg-laying!

Thanks for this. I really learned something!

She looks female to me. Looking at the cere is reasonably unreliable until the bird is an adult - males and females can actually look very similar as babies. I have mis-identified the genders of some of my birds many times before.


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pelvic examination is at best a guess, DNA is the only way to be sure (outside of an egg popping out) I'd be classed as female if I had a pelvic exam but last time I checked I'm not. DNA can't lie

reeb said:

She looks female to me. Looking at the cere is reasonably unreliable until the bird is an adult - males and females can actually look very similar as babies. I have mis-identified the genders of some of my birds many times before.


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I would say Toffee is an adult as he is close to a year. What is the maximum age a budgie gets the adult cere? If I go back to the petshop I'll ask if they can find out the hatch date from the breeder.

The reason I want to know is I'm thinking of getting another bird as my seven year old budgie Biscuit doesn't like Toffee in his cage and Toffee is very sad and quiet, nothing like the lively bird he was in the petshop with his friends. If Toffee is a female I'd need to make sure I don't get another girl as I've heard one male and two females is a bad thing.

Here is a helpful link on identifying the sex of young budgies:
https://www.cutelittlebirdiesaviary.com/why-so-many-young-budgies-are-incorrectly-sexed.html

Exceptions when sexing male budgies:
https://www.cutelittlebirdiesaviary.com/exceptions-to-the-rule-when-sexing-male-budgies.html

Read the second article and it will tell you that male budgies of certain mutations will keep the pink cere all their lives.

Hi! I've seen those links before. I'm pretty sure Toffee is a single factor dominant pied and opaline it was from the cute birdies site that I identified his mutations. According to that his cere should be blue by now. Here are pics from different angles:



What do you think?

I guess I just got two confusing budgies in a row. Here is my surviving seven year old with his brother when he was a juvenile then as an adult:



His cere also went white before it went blue and pink.

And this is why I always choose unisex names now

Toffee is doing a bit better. Hoping he'll make a full recovery soon, poor little thing.

Yeah, I also vote female. Hoping also for a speedy recovery

You could also DNA test them if you really want to know, but for me it just isn’t worth it.

I thought about it for biscuit but decided it wasn't worth the stress. And since Toffee is so nervous I won't do it for him.

So since I suck at determining gender, if I got another juvenile and it turned out to be a girl, and if Toffee also turns out to be female, would keeping the two girls in an adjacent cage to Biscuit (I'm sure he's a male now) cause problems? I mean Biscuit is past breeding age now and pretty much hates everyone but me since his brother passed, but would they still possibly fight over him? He actually doesn't like Toffee in his cage at all, hence the separate cages. I just want Toffee to go back to the chirpy bobbing bird he was in the petshop and that means either re-home him or find him a younger friend who'll bond with him.

PS has anyone heard of a budgie allergic to another budgie's regurgitation?

Toffee passed away He was improving, but then relapsed again. This morning Biscuit started violently vomiting too. Toffee seemed a bit better, he was even resting on one foot again. Then about 9pm he fell off his perch and onto his back and did that noise I know too well I picked him up and he passed away in my hand

Poor baby, I had him barely 3 months and he was barely a year old if that. Now I'm really worried about Biscuit as this is the first time he has been sick in the 7 1/2 years I've had him, and if Toffee could drop just like that, maybe Biscuit could too. Unfortunately the only avian vet I can get to is fully booked tomorrow. I'll try to beg an appointment, otherwise I'll have to take him to the animal hospital but they don't have avian specialists there.

Biscuit's sudden onset and Toffee's relapse seemed to coincide with drinking the avipro and I'm wondering if it's AGY or some other fungal infection, and the high sugar of the avipro set it off? I've put him back on plain water, but he is off his food and lethargic. He's just sitting with his eyes closed most of the day. Last time I put acv in their water Biscuit started coughing so not sure if I want to try that again. Tried giving him thyme, but he's just licking the water off. He's showing an interest in food, but then when it comes to eating it, he's just like, No.

Poor Biscuit, he lost his brother in November and now this

I'm sorry for your loss. I hope biscuit gets better.

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Thanks Biscuit seems back to normal. The vet never heard of yeast infections despite being an avian vet with many years working with parrots at a zoo. Toffee may have paid for the vet's ignorance with his life I might send the vet an email later with info on it as I don't want any more birds in his care dying due to incorrect diagnoses. His approach just seems to be to prescribe antibiotics for everything. I refused this time and will try herbs instead.

That does not sound like an Avian vet to not know of yeast infections (literally every land creature on earth gets yeast infections) Are you sure they're certified? A lot of vets will say they work with avians whilst knowing nothing about them

LordTriggs said:

That does not sound like an Avian vet to not know of yeast infections (literally every land creature on earth gets yeast infections) Are you sure they're certified? A lot of vets will say they work with avians whilst knowing nothing about them

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Tried to PM you but it wouldn't let me. He worked with parrots in a zoo as the consultant and the practice website says he has a special interest in avian medicine. I don't know if "certified avian vet" is an actual thing in the UK, there wasn't anything about it on the RCVS site. I looked cos I want to persuade one of the kids in my family to be a bird vet.

I've lost faith in him completely, I doubt I'll be taking any birds there again. I'd rather go to a regular vet who's willing to research avian illness than a so called avian specialist who replies with "well you'd know more about it than i do". When I tried to press the issue he said well yeasts are only secondary infections. So a bird with coughing fits, vomiting, stress at a new home then being rejected by the other bird, coming off antibiotics, nope no way could that bird become susceptible to secondary infections! I'm just so angry right now.

Gosh I miss my little ball of feathers. He was never fully tame but the last few weeks of his sad life he would literally step onto my hand every time i went to change his feeders and he was such a sweetie. I forgot to remove his ring before I buried him

I tried the acv again, very very weak solution, Biscuit coughed in the morning and brought up some seeds so I won't try it again. He's still having trouble defecating, sometimes they're dark and hard to get out, sometimes they are quite soft and green. I'm giving him sprigs of thyme throughout the day and keeping him warm as a precaution. The weather is terrible right now, but he did enjoy looking at the snow so far so good, just praying I don't make it three out of three

Sorry I'm late. I didn't realize you were in London!

there's 2 I know of in London who are Certified. CJ Hall Vets in Southwest London is among the top Avian Vets in England and there's Barrier Animal Care Clinic in South East London who seem pretty good. If you can get to CJ Hall that would be the best. I plan on using them in the future after meeting with the head vet last year

Thanks. I did contact CJ hall but they said they can't test faecal samples without seeing Biscuit and it's too far, I don't have a car, plus way expensive and since Biscuit is all right so far I'm going to give it a miss. Biscuit seems to be back to normal. I'm going to continue to give him thyme throughout the day as a precaution.

We've kept budgies for 27 years now, and the few times we've had to take a bird to a vet, they've always received good care and they were all just seeing general vets. The only exception is this last so-called avian specialist.

I really can't wait for spring. It's been a horrible winter.