male or female?

[bradzee]

Hello guys,
i have my parrot for 6 month and i still dont know if its a male or female so i took a couple of pictures so if someone could help me identify my parrot.

Thanks
brad

[Wolf]

Not good pictures to go by as we can't see anything. Try to get a couple of good frontal shots of the whole bird, A couple of side views of its head but from a little more distance. The tail feathers need to be attached to the bird, but don't break out the glue to stick them back on ( ha ha ha). Need a good in focus shot with the bird on a perch that shows the underside of the bird and it tail feathers as well as most of the red area. This last is the hardest shot to get to show what we are looking for as it involves the spine of some of the feathers and the tips of others.

[Pajarita]

You might have to wait until the first full molt is done because your bird is still ajuvenile but you can check the tail undercoverts (medium long feathers that grow under from the base of the tail and cover the beginning of the real long ones). If these red feathers have a grey edge (sometimes it's so thin to be hardly noticeable), it should be a female but, like I said, the bird might be too young to tell yet.

[bradzee]

Thanks guys i will try to take some near photos. Its 1 year and 2 month old.

[liz]

To get my newby seed eating birds to try something different, I crushed some nuts, mixed them with dry steal cut oats and some barley. I can't remember the name of it but I have a puffed grain with no iron in it that mixes well. They gave up the seed to get the nuts then found out they liked the grain. They rarely go to the seed now. They always check anything I give them for the first time to see if it is as good. But they call me in the morning until they get their cooked grain (gloop).

[Wolf]

Right now is breeding season and right after that they usually molt and since the feathers are new and at their brightest color right after they molt that would be the best time to get the photos.

[bradzee]

Thanks wolf, i will try to post pictures as soon as i see changes.
And one more thing. I had my parrot 6 month ago and it was 8 month old when i bought it and its still not talking it just whistles. Is this a normal behavior?

[Pajarita]

As long as the parrot vocalizes in any way, it's normal. Not all parrots talk... as a matter of fact, the greatest majority of them don't.

[Wolf]

There is no way to know if a parrot will talk or not nor is there any way of knowing how proficient at it they will become. Many will copy animal sounds as well as various whistles and beeps from machines but never speak a human word. All you can do it to talk and sing to the bird and it will pick it up or not.