What gender is my parakeet????

Question

I have two parakeets. They are both around 10 months old. my parakeet Chanson....Im not sure if it is a male or female. It has a white/pink cere, with a little bit of blue. My other parakeet canto is definatley a male. The two feed eachother and preen eachother often. If it is a female, when should it lay an egg? When should the cere turn crusty?

Answer 1

Its a female. Female parakeets tend to take a longer time to develop the colours on their cere. The cere would change colour and it will turn crusty.  

Answer 2

Hi,

Yeah it sounds like a female. Females ceres go white, blue etc like you described when they are not ready to breed or out of condition. When the hens cere goes a crusty brown then shes ready to breed. In order to come in to breeding condition then the hen needs at least thirteen hours of sunligh and plenty of space to fly, a hen will not come in to condition if she doesn't have these things.

If the birds are ten months old then they should start laying eggs, budgies can breed from 9months on wards. If you want them to breed then you need to supply the hen with a nestbox otherwise she will just lay eggs on the floor of the cage and so will not incubate them.

Answer 3

You can not tell the s*x of your birds till after their first Moult and over 12 months.

So wait a while longer but it seems that they are M& F.don't let them breed till they are at least 15 months.

As for the cere turning crusty this only happens as the birds get older .

Buy a book on Budgie keeping and breeding it will be worth your while,they are not expensive.