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I now have a worry that maybe boss may be female, and I am wondering if anyone knows info on this.........I read that lutinos, if female will have very light barring on the tail and also bright yellow spots under the wings. Boss has none of those, I looked very closely.
The thing that worries me the most here is that the lady at the rescue said boss is a pied, and he is lutino, also she had another bird there, a ringneck that she says is male, and my friend Lin's rescue went to check her out and said that bird was a female. I am wondering if this woman has a clue.
Anyone ever do the dna home kits? would getting blood from his nail hurt him? I am thinking I will just take boss to the vets anyway for a checkup and find out how much it is to get a dna test there. Boss does seem very healthy and happy and is doing well-----just wondering now if I got myself a girl or boy here -----I don't want to end up like sam--no offense sam!

Kim,

You can get the home test kits that don't require a nail clip to get blood. Avian biotech has one that tells you to pull 5 random chest feathers and send it in. Think the fee is $25.00 or something like that. If you don't see any barring on the tail, even faint ones, chances are you've got a boy. Plus, as old as he is, he should be doing boy things, i.e., hammering, heart wings, etc. Never have seen a female do the heart wings. No offense taken..

he doesn't do any hammering, but does do the heart wings. I am noticing similar behaviour to woody's and some not so similar so it's really hard to tell by behaviour, at least so far. Woody has been singing like crazy to boss at times, and always does that thing he does when he sees his reflection in the mirror------he opens and closes his beak really fast-----I have seen other tiels do this in the videos----woody does that alot, but boss does not do it at all.
About the feather plucking-----it doesn't hurt them does it? there is another one online that only requires two feathers, I am thinking if I could get the nerve up to do this that I could just try to get two feathers at once and just that one pull would not be too terrible for the bird. Yesterday we had to clip woody's nails---they were just getting so bad that he was getting stuck on things, my shirts and the rug, really bad and it seemed very upsetting to him when his feet get stuck! so I went and bought some birdie nail clippers with the blunt end and the little hole for the nail and they work really good and I was just careful to take very little off the end of his nail, and wow his nails feel so much better now when he is on my hand.
I just have to find out now if boss is really a boy-----I need to know. I even had thoughts of bringing boss back of he's a she, but then I feel guilty and boss is a really great bird, so I'm thinking we will just manage if he ends up being a she. ok sam well thanks for the info

If the ringneck is under 2 years old then indeed the ringneck COULD in fact be a male.... they don't normally get their rings until they are about 2 years old, plus or minus a few months.

Here's a good comparison of a male and female lutino ringnecks...


As for DNA sexing, yes it does hurt to pull out a feather! Even worse for birds than humans, since a feather follicle is much larger than our hair follicles... And with pulling out feathers there is a small chance that the follicle could be damaged (which normally isn't really an issue unless it's with the wing and tail feathers... and it's more of an issue when they are pulled out the wrong way....)... nail clipping tends to be easier as long as you don't cut too far into the quick. If you do, use cornstarch or flour.

DNA sexing tends to be cheaper with Avian Biotech than through a vet. There's also AMR Labs which a breeder recommended... there are other labs out there that do DNA sexing but I don't know which ones are reputable and which ones aren't.


And if indeed Boss is a female, as long as you don't encourage breeding you shouldn't have to worry about eggs and chicks (although there is still a chance that it could happen). Currently with 5 cockatiels here... 4 females and 1 male, there may be some breeding going on however I haven't gotten any eggs since the cockateil family came here... and it was just one, and chronic egg laying stopped.

Only once have I not encouraged (in any way) breeding and egg laying but still managed to get a female that laid eggs... and it was resolved by putting her in a different cage. Thus normally, if egg laying does occur, it can be stopped by changing things around.

there are some pet shops that do DNA testing or just call the vet office and ask. I would be too nervous clipping a nail and especially, plucking feather in order to do it myself...

me too. I am thinking I will bring boss to the vet and have it done there. Tonight boss started doing something that woody does. He does the hanging upside down thing with the wings spread. do males tend to do this more? or do females do it too

Both sexes do the wing thing how old is the bird you are trying to sex?
if it is very young the tail feathers won`t show the banding (in hens) until the first set of adult feathers come.

All my girls hang upside down too. Linus is our male and he strutts like a cowboy in which is a male thing and he is very vocal. He can actually be a pain in the neck bossing the girls around.

boss is a year old------he is old enough, and a lutino. Is it true that a lutino female will have bright yellow spots under the wings and light yellow barring on the tail? this is what I have read, and boss doesn't appear to have either of these.

I've only been able to look at one lutino cockatiel. This cockatiel was assumed male, however it also did the hanging upside down thing with wings spread.... and had the all too common bars and spots on wings and tail. Sadly, we'll never know for sure if this cockatiel was male or female!

As for the constant beak opening and closing which I forgot to mention in last post.... all tiels may do this... both males and females...

Kim,

I know what you are talking about the rapid beak opening thing.. Both Smokey and Gizmo do that when mating, and at times, Gizmo will do it when I'm stroking his head or neck. I think it's some sort of excitement, and their tongue is also attempting to taste. I've never seen any of the girls do that. I'd guess 99% you got a boy..

chibi-tori wrote:Kim,

I know what you are talking about the rapid beak opening thing.. Both Smokey and Gizmo do that when mating, and at times, Gizmo will do it when I'm stroking his head or neck. I think it's some sort of excitement, and their tongue is also attempting to taste. I've never seen any of the girls do that. I'd guess 99% you got a boy..

Sam, here's Casey, confirmed female!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgtWyZvgd0

Casey is so cute! thanks for sharing that. Boss does not do this sam, only woody does it and when he does it, he really opens and closes the beak fast and alot more than casey did in that video---he really gets into it! guess the only way I will know for sure is if I make the vet visit.

I was going to say the same thing.. Smokey and Gizmo have their beak opening / closing like severa times per second.. really rapid. I still think he's a male

Well, it's looking like woody has a girlfriend. Not only have I been able to see very faint barring under boss's tail, but I had mentioned to my friend Lin that boss walks differently sometimes then woody and puts his butt up in the air, and she told me that is a female thing. Anyone else notice females putting their butt up in the air?? boss does it all the time-----woody never does. Well, at least I don't have to resort to dna testing. It kinda sucks that someone would post somewhere that a bird is male and pied and it's a lutino female---it was really important to me to get another male, but now I guess that's changing since I got me a girl. Today boss also flew into the wall quite hard, had this little blood spot on top of her nose when we got her, and now has it again boss seems fine, but I really have to get those wings clipped better or boss is gonna end up hurt. So now what do I do, any suggestions on this name, boss? should I leave it? or change to something female?