Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We got our pet from a pet store about 3 weeks ago. Everything about her (as we're calling her) said "female," but recently there have been splotches of yellow popping out on her face & crest. We don't know her age, but were led to believe she had just come from the breeder as a "baby." She is banded. Is there any way we can track this to see when she was hatched? Just curious, though, as gender isn't an issue. Would like to know her real age, though.

Your cockatiel does look younger. Can you check with the pet store and see what breeder they usually use? Most reputable pet stores will either give you the breeders name to contact for hatching date etc or they will have an actual list of each bird giving their full hatch date. A few of your larger chain stores do buy in larger quantities and may not have all that information. You can try a google search for leg band identification. There are several voluntary sites where breeders voluntarily register with their leg band id so that you can contact them with questions and find out where and when your baby is from. I had found them a week or so ago and will try to find them again if you are unable to locate any of those registries. Good luck!

I did a quick search and found this one registry. There are others but this was the first I could come across.

If you can read the numbers and letters on the band (if there are any) then if from an actual aviary and not an individual breeder it will usually have the following. First it will have a series of letter usually the initials of or letters standing for the aviary where the bird was hatched. Then it will have a series of numbers which can be the following. It can be just the date hatched including month and year, it can be the number in the clutch and the year date, it can be the number of total birds hatched there with or without the date etc. IF the leg band ends in 05 or 06 then I would guess on your baby it at least partially tells the date, if not you might have to do a further search to see if you can find the aviary or individual who had the bird when hatched.

I am attaching the link but don't know how many aviaries are actually registered there. Good luck!
Buddy's Friends Registry

You have a normal grey & they're easy to visually sex. If she is a jouvenile & only just come from the breeder & has splotches of yellow popping through. Then she may be getting close to about 6 months old & maturing. If this is the case you won't need to wait long before you know if she is a she or he. A she will look just like she does now, a he will end up with the bright yellow face & no barring or stripes on the under tail & wings, they'll be dark solid grey.

Mine is also a normal grey & a mature He.

Sorry I meant to post a pic of my boy.
this is him at 4 months

when he's matured

Thanks to you both! I entered the info on the bird's band, but this particular data base didn't have it listed. I think I'll contact the store (not a major chain) for help. We don't really NEED to know the age and/or sex (doesn't really matter to us one way or another -- just curious), but my son is doing an "Animal Care" merit badge for Boy Scouts with this pet as his subject (what better way to get him to learn about caring for a bird!), so any background bio on the bird would be helpful.

So far "she" still has her tail banding and the head color still looks about the same, but every day looks a little more yellow. Most of the time she's quiet (for a cockatiel), but when she decides to chatter, she doesn't hold it back at all! She's already doing a perfect "wolf whistle," which we haven't used around her that much. See, sometimes I think "she" might be a "he!"

Females can be taught to whistle but it's VERY difficult. Males love to chatter, learn to talk & pick up whistling almost instantly. They can be quiet while they're fairly new but if s/he has started to wolf whistle & chatters, it may just be the begining of a chatter box!!! My boy has a large vocab & doesn't shut up!!

Each day it seems like more and more of her head is turning yellow, and there is white starting to show around her/his orange spots. She's getting more "vocal," too. I guess I never realized (duh!) that babies took a while to grow their "adult-gender" feathers! (duh!) Pictures in books show baby cockatiels with yellow crests & heads, but maybe those aren't normal grays....

Anyway, we're starting to say "good bird," instead of "good girl," just in case she is a he (actually, my son corrects me and says "he's a boy, Mom!"