Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello. we are new cockatiel owners and we are seriously in love with these birds. My boyfriend works at a small petstore and these birds just stole his heart and he had to have them. So we traded in our Burdgies that he had rescued from unloving homes, and brought home the cockateils. I felt bad about the budgies, but 2 hrs after we dropped them off, someone came and picked out those 2 birds to buy together! it was pretty weird they picked the same two birds out of the cage of all of the budgies.

So can anyone tell us how we know their sex. They were told they were all females but i cant seem to find how to sex cockatiels....they seem to be tricky. I would also love to know if these are normals or a different morph. I dont know anything about cockateil genetics but from reading a bit it seems VERY complicated.

We are really Reptile people but we really love these birds. they are so sweet and personalble. We got them one of those bird playpens for a different room this weekend and they seem to love to play on it and spend time with us.

this is Spunky. The first one is Suzi.

I am sorry I mean it looks like you have a normal male and female.

Generally the males have brighter cheek patches and faces. Males will not have any bars or stripes on their tails and they will not have spots under their wings. Females will have duller faces, bars on their tails, and spots under their wings (on their flight feathers). Now males will look like females until their first (sometimes second) molt (where they "shed" their old feathers and grow new ones). So from your pictures, assuming they are both over or around 6 months old, the first one looks like a male and the second one looks like a female. If this is the case you will definatly want them to have their own cages as cockatiels are prolific breeders. Hope this helps and enjoy your new babies! Being a relativly new bird owner, you do know about feeding foods daily right? =)

Actually, male and female `tiels can share a cage without breeding. My male and female `tiels have been cage mates for over a year and a half with no eggs.

You just need to follow a few precautions. First and foremost: no nest boxes, no tents. Don`t allow them to have access to any dark, enclosed spaces like drawers, cupboards, under the bed, under the covers, etc... Limit the hours of light they`re exposted to (as little as 10 hours of light) if they start to act nesty. Rearrange the toys and perches in the cage regularly, even moving the cage to other locations in the room if possible. If there are any eggs, they can be replaced with dummy eggs (from the vet or bird store, or wooden eggs from the craft. Marbles or stones might even work). Or, you can freeze the eggs for 24 hours, mark them, and put them back where you found them.

I agree Itdead, that they can live in the same cage without breeding. I have just heard so many stories from people saying "she always layed eggs but none of them hatched, then one day they hatched" and they now have babies being raised on the cage bottom. Not saying that would happen with someone who took precautions to get them to STOP laying eggs, it's just a pretty common story.

Here is a good site that has pictures of what you'll be looking for to sex them.
Sexing Cockatiels

Where did you drop the budgies off?

Cockatiels live for 15 to 20 years. I hope you decide to keep them.

It looks like you have two normal males.

oh sorry. we brought them to the pet store where he works and traded them. And for some reason they were instantly bought.

oh we are keeping these! i love them. I was happy he helped the budgies out because they werent in good situations, but we really werent enjoying them. They were so skittish. These birds are stealing our hearts.

however long they live is great my iggy is like 5 and i think will live forever. and same with the bearded dragons. they can live 10-12 years....

I`d say the first one is a pied male. If he was a `normal` male that tail would be a darker color (unless it got washed out by a flash?) The other is a normal female, unless it`s a baby. If it`s a baby it could be either male or female (and you wouldn`t know until the first moult).

Actually, cockatiels can live to 30 years or MORE. I once heard of a 38 year old cockatiel that the owners had put to sleep because it came down with an infection and they thought treating it would be too `stressful.` 25 years is a really good age, though. By that time your bird is pretty old.