Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi! My name is Amanda, and Sonnee is my 2-year-old cockatiel. We've been calling Sonnee a girl for 2 years, but now I'm curious as to "her" true gender.

Sonnee is a pearl-pied. I know male pearls will loose their pearling, and I also know that pied cockatiels cannot be sexed by plummage. But what about abird that is both pearl and pied?

She still has her pearling (though it might be a little bit less than when she was a baby), and bars on her tail feathers. Her face was pretty yellow even as a baby, but it might be a bit more yellow now than it was.

As for behavior, it's hard for me to tell, as Sonnee is my first cockatiel. (I had a female budgie a few years ago (sexed accurately by the color of her cere), and she was as vocal as any male budgie I've known..) She seems quite vocal, and really loud, but she's often very quiet as well. She loves to whistle. She tries to mimic some sounds sometimes, but honestly she's not very good at it (she can copy simple whistles, but only other thing she's tried is the sound of the phone when buttons are pressed).

Does anyone have any insight into this topic? I don't plan on breeding Sonnee, so "her" gender isn't really all that important, but I would like to know, just for the sake of knowing.

I have a pearl pied and believe me she is a girl. She used to lay about 6 eggs a month. I believe you have a female.

hmm..
Sonnee hasn't laid any eggs- but birds don't always lay. It could be that she's not recieving the "proper breeding stimuli" or something like that..

Anyway, just typing my thoughts, thank you for your input

Some birds don't lay eggs at all and this is a good thing. Laying eggs is hard on a hen's system. Pepper nearly died from all her egg laying. She was eventually egg bound and was in the hospital for four days. I am so relieved that she finally quit laying eggs.

If your bird is 2 and still showing pearling, it is almost a certainty that you have a hen. I have heard of *one* instance of a male bird retaining their pearling through the adult molt, but I haven't seen any verification of it published.

Even with pied birds, you can see hints as to sex, depending on the patterning of the white areas. Female birds will still have the typical mottled/barring on tail feathers or vent feathers that are not white, same thing for the coloured ovals on the flight feathers that are not white. Facial patches may also be a clue, since in the greatest number of colour variations the female has a suffused colour on the face, rather than the brighter, clearer colours that the male exhibits.