Sexing a Sun Conure

[TammyG]

I made a post earlier but I cant find where it went. Im trying to see if anyone knows how to tell a male/female Sun Conure apart? I know DNA but I was hoping someone knew of another way. I felt between my birds legs and I felt something hard the size of this @ sign.

[Pajarita]

Meaning you think there's an egg in there? Hens do get an 'egg butt' prior to laying and you can even see the difference but, if this is what it is, it would come out in a matter of hours. I have a male sunnie and I've never had a female so I don't really know how to tell the difference or even if there is a way of visually sexing them but, usually, in species that are not dimorphic, the males' heads are more square looking and their necks are thicker and stronger than the hens'.

[marie83]

You are probably feeling the pelvis bone.
Some really experienced people claim they can tell by judging the distance between the bones but this is not reliable.

The only way you can tell for sure is DNA sexing which is really cheap and easy if you get the sample and send it yourself. A vet will do it but you will get a consultation fee, a charge for collecting any samples and the cost of the test itself.

My advice is to google avian DNA sexing in your country.

[Eric&Rebecca]

Not to mention if you palpate their pelvic incorrectly you can injure the birds insides. Pelvic sexing is really not very effective. In fact my previous avian vet (who was very old school) said all my boy cockatiels were female. Our avian vet now does it sometimes to check but he said all pelvis' are different so he prefers to rely on DNA testing as its more accurate.

There are surgical sexing options but I think thats way too much of a risk just to find a sex. If you do a blood test try to use avian biotech, in my experience they have been the most effective. George was DNA's as male by the breeder with this lab.

[TammyG]

No its not an egg lol its a small boney feeling thing. I cant wait for its colors to change. He/She is mostly green on the wings right now. Im not going to breed the bird so I will just wait until it gets old enough to see if it has eggs. I just like to know if its a male or female. I tried to make my profile pic a picture of my bird but even when I resized it to 150x150 it wouldnt work. Well thanks for the help I appreciate it.

[TammyG]

This is Mango

[marie83]

Hiya, females dont always lay eggs. In fact one of my female 'tiels was 5 when she laid a clutch and she has never laid any since. We didn't know she was female so it was a big shock to me, she acted like my male 'tiels, she had no distinct barring under her tail feathers and bright cheek patches like a male. I had no idea her mutation (pearl) was sex linked as none of my 'tiel books stated that, its only since I started looking into it after the egg laying I learned that fact.
Funnily and rather oddly enough the barring under her tail feathers is starting to become more apparent each moult but before the eggs there was no barring.

[TammyG]

well I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with my profile pic haha...Do you all think my bird will be the bright yellow/orange colors once it gets older?

[Eric&Rebecca]

A single bird shouldn't really be laying eggs if its a female anyway and not all do even then! Occassionally they lay because of an environmental factors but this is something that isn't a good behaviour not something every female does without fail.

Again palpating the pelvis incorrectly or without vertinarian knowledge can hurt the bird. Its a really simple test if you get an avian vet to do it. You have it done while having a check up.

There's a good chance there's no way you will know unless you do DNA.

[Pajarita]

All female birds have the capacity to lay eggs even without mates. Some of them don't but that doesn't mean they can't. I have taken in birds their owners swear are males because they were 19 (Elliot which turned out to be Ellie), 24 (Nathan which turned out to be Naida) and even a 31 years old and they had never laid a single egg and they all laid in my birdroom, most of them the following breeding season (the 31 year old zon I got at the end of last July is getting ready to lay her second clutch of the season, as a matter of fact).

I can't really tell by the picture but unless there is a fringe of yellow feathers at the top of the wings (they look all green on the picture), the bird is not a pure sun conure. Unfortunately, breeders are selling Sundays and even Jendays babies as sunnies... But it doesn't really matter, they are VERY similar in everything else (big time screamers and nippy when things don't go as they want them -my sunnie is a nasty, nasty bird and my Sunday has destroyed every single Tshirt I have -LOL)