How To Tell The Gender Of A Parrot

If you are wondering how to tell the difference between a male and female parrot, or how to tell the gender of your parrot, listen to this really strange experience I had with my parrot.

I have a ‘male’ bare-eyed cockatoo named Casper. I have had him for about 13 years and got him from the pet shop when he was six months old. I was told at the pet shop that he was a male bird because he talked well, was extremely clever, and bonded well with women. He also had dark eyes, which was also a so-called good indicator that he was male.

I have believed Casper to be a boy all these years until he laid an egg last week.  I almost fell on my back.

Then, this morning, I found another egg at the bottom of the cage, so my boy, whom I thought was a boy all these years, is suddenly a girl. It is a very strange feeling.

Casper or now should I call her Casperina has been acting rather strangely in the last while. She has been ripping up the bottom of her cage and turning all the newspaper into tiny shreds of paper. I guess I should have guessed she was trying to make a nest.

Now I feel rather sorry for her as she seems really broody but I don’t know anybody who has a male bare-eyed cockatoo to keep her company.

So Now How To Tell The Gender Of A Parrot

With cockatiels it is easy. The males are the colorful ones and the females are rather plain. The males talk and the females hiss. With bigger parrots, it is a bit more tricky, as they all have beautiful colors and they all talk.

So if they don’t lay an egg like mine did, how will you know? In most cases, it is not necessary to know, but if you want to breed with the birds you will need to be sure, as it is expensive to buy the wrong bird.

In most cases, the only sure way to tell is to take the parrot to an avian vet who can do a DNA test to check the bird’s gender.

Other than that here are some other tell-tail signs:

• Female birds like to nest and can get aggressive towards you when they are broody.
• If they lay eggs they are female, but most will only lay when they have reached sexual maturity which is from about 3 years old.
• Male birds get very talkative and try to call a mate.
• When female parrots are hormonal, they can get a bit aggressive.
• The females of many of the parrots are smaller than the males and have rounder heads.
• In some species, the iris is paler in the females.
• If careful measurements are taken, most females have shorter wings than their mates.
• DNA sexing is the safest and most efficient way to sex a parrot.
• Surgical sexing used to be popular, but DNA sexing is used more nowadays.