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I am looking for some information. I am hoping someone here can help me.

I have two Cockatiels. Male I believe is a regular Gray. (He has yellow face and orange cheek spots.) The Female, I'm not sure of her classification, she is all gray with only having white on her wings, no other color, her face is the same dark gray as her body. (she is a rescue) Both are the nice dark gray color.

They have raised 3 clutches. First clutch, of 3, had ones that looked like both mom and dad. Second clutch was a single pure white with red eyes.
We now have the current clutch of 4 and we have one Gray like the mother, no orange or yellow, and the other 3 are white and seems they all have red eyes.

I have tried to read up about the whites or albino. It seems like they are saying they are lutino lacking color.

Does this mean the parents have lutino in the background?

Has anyone heard that the whites have any "health" issues?

Is there a way to know the sex of the whites without a test?

Any info on the whites and or comments are welcome.

The Parents
Storm (mom in back) and Cracker (dad in front)

Don't know alot about the white tiels, but your hen is a whiteface mutation and your cock is a normal gray. He looks like he could be split to pied by looking at the spots on the back of the head. Also, if I am not mistaken, in order for you to get a white bird with red eyes either the hen has to be split to lutino or the cock has to be split to lutino. I do know that the lutino is a sexed linked mutation, meaning that if it is the cock that is split for lutino then all of your white birds should be female. If it is the hen that is split then all of the white ones would be male. Not positive on this information so hopefully someone with more experience with cockatiel genetics will respond. There is a link to a cockatiel genetics calculator on the National Cockatiel Society website (www.cockatiels.org) that might be of some use to you.

Andy

I do not know anything about my adult birds parents.
Our Female was rescued in a drug raid and was the same age as what...I'm assuming was a sibling to a Standard Gray....yellow and orange face...bright colors...but had bars......was young.....and sang alot. (some said it was a female at the time but I'm thinking it could have been a boy. They were approx 4 months old.)
I do not know anything about any family of our Male.

They have had 5 whites, a few standard Grays and a few whitefaced greys.

My mom kept one white and I get to bird-sit every time she goes away...(she is away right now so I have the joy of having Snowball for a bit) My mom said Snowball was vocal when she first got it but has since been very quiet. I have someone who saw the bird as swears they saw "barring" when it was young and it is gone now. Snowball is 10 months old.

There is much controversy about the sex of Snowball.


It seems from what I have read here and on other site two birds who throw whites, that all white babies will be same sex....

I'm learning but don't understand this genetic stuff well.

Thanks for any help anyone can give.

Roberta

Babies!!

Yeah!! It's a girl, it's a girl, it's a girl.....and an unknown...lol

Cockatiel Color Palette
Mother:Whiteface
Father:Grey Split To Whiteface {X1: Lutino}

male offspring:
25% Grey Split To Whiteface {X1: Lutino}
25% Grey Split To Whiteface
25% Whiteface Split To {X1: Lutino}
25% Whiteface

female offspring:
25% Lutino Split To Whiteface
25% Grey Split To Whiteface
25% Whiteface Lutino
25% Whiteface

So this means my little whitefaced could be either male or female.
I went to the site you listed above this example and could not get your answer to appear.

I'm trying to figure this all out...
Thanks again for all of your help!!

Sorry,
I see the father is a cross of a Visual Gray and a Whitefaced Lutino....I was thinking it was just a Lutino...
Thanks again for your help,
Roberta

I coulld be really far off, but I thought i had heard somewhere that eye color had something to do with it. Lutinos has red eyes, correct? Again, may be WAY off, just what I thought I had heard somewhere.

Ahh....... thanks, I started learning all of this stuff hands on at a local aviary, but I have not had time to be there much lately so ........i guess it is like the saying goes.....if you dont use it you lose it. Thanks!

Thanks to all that replied.
I wanted to let you all know about something I discovered.
I gave a "bath" to the almost 1 year old. Well, when they are wet you can see "bars" on the tail feathers. You don't have to look hard...you can just see them.
I am very happy to know about my white faced lutino females! I think that is one of the "coolest" facts I now have!!
I do believe all of mine also have the red eyes...some are so dark they seem "black" but when light hits them right you can tell they are red.
Thanks again to all.

It might be easier with a black light.... Below is an image of a young lutino male cockatiel [sexed via behavior] under a black light. You can see his stripes. If you have a black light, I would love to see the results on the albinos!

(click to enlarge)

Hi!
What has been said already is correct, but, in addition, both these birds have ticking (patches with no grey), so they both carry Pied.
This means that over time, 25% of all babies will be Pieds, 50% will carry the Pied gene and 25% will not inherit it at all. You can usually tell if Pied is present in a bird if it has the ticking on it's head, body or perhaps shows a clear toe nail. Unfortunately, it will be impossible to tell in the Albinos (whiteface lutinos). BTW, all lutinos and albinos from this pair are females, 100% for sure.
Rick Solis
Tampa, Florida