cockateil cna u help me

i have a preety good sized cage and i want to keep a pair of cockteils in there can u tell me how to sex cockteils i wanna get a grey and a lutino cockteil can i breed them or crossbreed them and tell me how to sex them?

 

Well firstly you will ned a cage large enough to hold 6-8 cockatiels since if you plan on breeding this is the amount of room your going to need in the cage.

Sexing cockatiels, Normal grey is the easiest to sex both sexes are a very dark grey with the male having a bright yellow head and bright orange cheeks, The male will also have no barring on the underside of his tail.
The female has a dull greeny/yellow coloured head with dull orange cheek patches, The underside of her tail will also have black barring.

Lutinos can not be visually sexed unless you know what your looking for and even then this is not a great way of telling the sex DNA sexing is best way to go for sexing lutino's

You can breed a lutino with a normal grey but your babies will come out as follows.

Mother: Lutino
Father: Grey

Male offspring: 100% Grey split to Lutino
Female offspring: 100% Grey

If you get a normal grey split to lutino and a lutino female you will get.

Mother: Lutino
Father: Grey split to Lutino

Male offspring: 50% Lutino
50% Grey split to lutino

Female offspring: 50% Lutino
50% grey


Or if you use a grey female and a lutino male you will get

Mother: grey
Father: lutino

Male offspring: Grey split to lutino
Female offspring: 100% lutino

What you must remember Lutinos carry a bald gene where there is a bald spot behind the crest on the head this is passed onto all generations of there chicks so never breed to lutinos together.

Hope this has helped you some

Mike

 

One thing I have also noticed that the colours of the chicks may also depend on the grandparents. I have a female pied native (grey) and a Cinamon male and for the first 2 nests only got greys or grey pied for babies but the last two nests that I have bred out of the same pair have resulted in yellow (not Lutino as it didn't have the bald spot but the colouring is the same) a yellow with cinamon flecks 2 cinamon, one that we are having trouble naming the colour (mostly yellow with grey wings and some light grey on the chest) and 2 that could only be called light cinamon. Most of these birds have been male but the last 4 are still to young to work out their sex through behaviour. All of the first 2 nests were male.

I dont try and guess the colours as they grow anymore just enjoying the personalities adn different colours.

Breeding cockatiels is a bit of work and a lot of fun.

Enjoy

 

Mchat, When you get different offspring this means that both parents are a split mutation.
Your birds will be carrying the lutino gene.

There offspring will also be split mutation. Here are some mutation combination.



Mother:Grey Split To Pied
Father:Cinnamon

male offspring:
50% Grey Split To Pied {X1: Cinnamon}
50% Grey Split To {X1: Cinnamon}

female offspring:
50% Cinnamon Split To Pied
50% Cinnamon.........


Mother:Grey Split To Pied
Father:Cinnamon Lutino

male offspring:
50% Grey Split To Pied {X1: Cinnamon Lutino}
50% Grey Split To {X1: Cinnamon Lutino}

female offspring:
50% Cinnamon Lutino Split To Pied
50% Cinnamon Lutino......



Mother:Grey Split To Pied
Fatheried Cinnamon

male offspring:
50% Pied Split To {X1: Cinnamon}
50% Grey Split To Pied {X1: Cinnamon}

female offspring:
50% Pied Cinnamon
50% Cinnamon Split To Pied.....

Certousy(sp) of colour palatte.

Using behavious is not a way to sex cocktiels as if like me you end up with females that can mimic any song and can sing better than the males then this makes it very confusing. My females will even display all the male characteristics from singing well to the head bobby and even trying to breed with the other birds....

A Cinnamon male will pass on his genes to the females resulting in cinnamon females the males will have the mothers genes, this is how it supposed to work out..

Hope this has helped a little i know it looks confusing but the parts on () mean they are carrying a sex linked gene...

Mike