Girl or Boy Cockatiel?

[VeganPilot]

I don't know about...it. Well, it still doesn't have a name yet, because I don't know the gender! Any avian enthusiasts want to help me out here? I am inexperienced with birds, and don't know if I should name my cockatiel Amelia or Orville.

 

[VeganPilot]

By the way, I think it is a Pearl specie.

 

[VeganPilot]

Another photo of it.

 

[VeganPilot]

<3 <3 <3 More pics...

 

[Mekaisto]

Look like a grey X pearl boy to me, although I'm no expert on tiels.
Are you able to pick him/her up? If it has yellow bars on the underside of the tail, it's a girl

 

[KayJeanne518]

First, do you know tge age? If its under 6 months you won't know until it molts. Male pearls and females have barring under their tails when they are young but males eventually lose them as they molt. Also, males will lose their pearls when they molt but it can take a few molts. Females keep their pearls and bars under their tails.

 

[VeganPilot]

She/He is 2 years old now. I'll try to pick him/her up and do a picture. I don't know whether it's Amelia or Orville yet.

 

[VeganPilot]

Here is its tail as requested. It doesn't like being held, but for the convenience of a photograph u_u

 

[MikeyTN]

She/He is 2 years old now. I'll try to pick him/her up and do a picture. I don't know whether it's Amelia or Orville yet.

At two years old yours would be a girl!!! Pearl is a mutation of the Cockatiel specie, not a pearl specie. So Amelia would be more fitting.

It takes the males awhile to molt out the pearls but by around a year of age, most of the pearls would be gone.

 

[MonicaMc]

Definitely female!

Some of her tail feathers are clear with a dark quill. This is due to her being a pearl mutation.

Look like a grey X pearl boy to me, although I'm no expert on tiels.
Are you able to pick him/her up? If it has yellow bars on the underside of the tail, it's a girl

Bars or no bars is not an accurate way to sex pearl cockatiels!


https://www.flickr.com/photos/reversedmemory/3580245930




http://www.justcockatiels.net/pearl.html

 

[KayJeanne518]

Definitely a beautiful female

 

[VeganPilot]

Haha Excellent, I can call her Amelia now! My parents are inexperienced and they think she is a boy, but no! It's strange, because usually in the animal kingdom, the males are more beautiful than females in dimorphic species. But with the pearl mutation, the females are preferred and more beautiful. I wonder why, but it's excellent!

 

[VeganPilot]

So do you think it is a cross-bred, hybrid or a pure pearl? I'm very inexperienced with birds. I do apologise with that.

 

[MonicaMc]

Actually, when it comes to birds, it's not always true that males are more beautiful than females! I know that birds of prey the two sexes are almost indistinguishable, except that females are larger than males.

In the parrot world, many species (not all) the sexes look the same. Conures, macaws, cockatoos, pionus, senegals, amazons.... for the most part, these species (and others) cannot be visually sexed and you need to DNA or SS the bird.


And then there are eclectus. You wanna guess which one is the hen?

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxhrarjGln1r9xr1to1_500.jpg


Cross-bred and hybrid, to me, are the same thing. She is neither. Hybrid would indicate her parents are two separate species - i.e. one was a cockatiel and the other wasn't a cockatiel. She's a pure cockatiel. Not mixed with another species.



If it helps any.... a hybrid is like breeding a tiger and a lion together. With cockatiels, it would be like breeding a cockatiel to a cockatoo.

And a mutation is like the white tiger vs the normal orange tiger. It's not a hybrid, it's just a simple color difference.


Your hen is not a normal hen, she's the pearl (aka opaline) mutation. The pearl mutation is what gives her the spotted appearance with the brighter colored face and the tail feathers that are clear or lightly marked.




Here's a photo of a normal hen.

Here is a photo of a pearl hen, with her father behind her. Her father is split for the pearl mutation. (he has one gene for pearl, if he had two genes for it, he'd be a visual pearl, but he's not)

 

[VeganPilot]

Wow, her father looks proud of how beautiful his daughter had become :3 I love polyandrous female birds, kinda feminist in nature