Hi,I have had this budgie for a year and I'm still not able to tell what sex it is. Is someone able to help me with it?I have photos but not sure how to post them.

Edited November 30, 201212 yr by Catsol

Hello, welcome to the forum. There is link in my signature on how to post pictures on here.

Thanks for your help

Hi welcome to the forum.

I would say male but the picture is a bit grainy so it is hard to see if the cere is fleshy coloured or light tan, if light tan you have a hen.

A few more photos would be helpful.

Cheers Jenny

Here are some more pics.

Looks female to me (but I'm no expert lol

Thanks for your help..I was told it was a male but the cere never got darker it's been an off white cream color with a bit of blue.

Edited November 30, 201212 yr by Catsol

Top photo it looks more like a hen and by what colours your explaining.

Thank you I'm very new at this so not sure. She is light purple and white but has black eyes not at all like the other 2 I have.

Edited December 1, 201212 yr by Catsol

She is a violet recessive pied which can be harder to sex as the males cere stays the same colour as a young male so is pinky-purple and is smooth while the hens are the same as other hens with varying shades of brown and sometimes bluish white, but rougher in texture than the males.

Cheers Jenny

Thanks you very much for the information I think from what you say it is female.

Here are my 2 new baby's....

Very pretty

You said you have had that recessive pied bird for a year. Has it never gone through a cycle where its cere gets dark brown, then thick and crusty, and then flakes off and starts all over again?

 

Because if not, then it may have some type of hormonal problem, preventing it from cycling normally. Males have also been known to have hormone or iodine problems that make them look like females.

 

I do think it looks female.

No it has never changed from when it was a baby I have being waiting to see if I could tell what sex it was but it never changed.

In this photo, the cere appears to be an overall whitish, with just the beginnings of the tan color starting in the center, from when a female is going into breeding condtion. So if I only had this photo to go on, I would say hen.

 

But in the next photo I see the typical recessive pied male color which is fleshy, with just a hint of lighter color around the nostrils. These "rings around the nostrils" can throw a lot of people off, but I find that many of my males, especially the recessive pieds, have them. The recessive pied males vary a lot from the pinky-lavender baby colored cere to this kind of tannish "flesh color",

 

Since you say this bird has never cycled through the breeding condtion stages a hen goes through, then I think it must be a cock. Can you get any other photos, from different angles, that might have the light hitting the cere better?

Hi my camera is not very good so I hope this photos help.

Wow, now I am even more confused. These new photos really look like a hen to me. Perhaps you have a hen who has some sort of hormonal issue that has arrested her in a stage of her cycle, so that she never goes through all the normal cere phases. Or perhaps it is a male with hormone issues that makes him look female. One of our members, Robyn, had a male with a brown hen cere, and he needed iodine supplements, and after that, he went on to father chicks.

 

If you are not a breeder, then it probably doesn't really matter whether you have a hen or cock, unless you run into issues with three birds living in one cage, and only one of them being a hen. If your two new boys grow up to fight over your old bird, then you might want to separate that one out, or get a fourth bird, and hope you end up with two hens and two males. If you still ended up with fights, you could just house them two by two,and then it shouldn't matter what their genders are.

Thank you for the information. I'm just as confused with the bird I guess I will never find out the sex, at the moment they are getting along okay.