can cockatiels female sing ?

[lelong]

i want to buy a new hatched cockatiel, but cant tell male or female , but i like them to whitle, sing, or talk , can cockatiels female sing ?

[emsy991]

I have had many cockatiels and none of the females have sang. It's not impossible, but its not likely.

They are very very sweet (the females) and definitely worth having. If you only want a singer, though, you would want a male (and not every male will be singer either, so you'll have to be prepared to love them even if they dont like singing).

[Eric&Rebecca]

Hi,

Firstly, do not buy a chick unless it is over 12 weeks old and FULLY weaned. This means NO baby formula, it must be picking up solid foods, seeds, vegetables, fruits and/or pellets by itself.

Secondly, NEVER buy a bird just because you want it to do something. Its not a circus animal.

Thirdly, to answer your question. You will NOT be able to tell the sex of a cockatiel until 6-12 months of age and after the first molt unless you do a DNA test however unless you are breeding (which you shouldn't) gender shouldn't really be important to you either. All cockatiels look female to start with until they have the first molt which can occur anywhere between 6-12 months of age. While whistling and singing is more common in males plenty of females whistle too so that is no indication of gender either. Some males won't sing or whistle, some females will and visa versa. Also they may not start whistling for many weeks, months, days years... In order to make it more likely you can create a happy environment with a very large cage, plenty of out of cage time, a good diet, 10-12 hours sleep at the right time for the bird (so dawn and dusk) and interaction, training and taming. Again all of which take time.

If it is a normal grey the male will get a yellow face and block grey tail and wing feathers underneath. Female grey cockatiels keep their barred (striped) tail feathers, spots under their wings and have very little yellow on their faces although some do have a little. Also male cheek patches tend to be darker and females lighter but again this is not always the case.

If it is a pearl cockatiel, males lose their pearls in the molt while females keep them.

Lutinos, cinnamons, fallow, whitefaces and pieds are more difficult to sex and usually require and DNA test. This can be done by a simple blood test. You should always take your birds for a blood test when they are new anyway and get a check up with an AVIAN vet (not a normal vet) so they can just add this test on if its important to you to know before the molt or if its a mutation that is hard to sex.

However, if you just want the gender/cockatiel so it will sing to you. Don't get one- its not a good reason to get a bird solely to be your personal musician. Sorry if I misunderstand your intention but I don't like it when people get birds for the novelty of singing, talking and whistling.

[lelong]

thanks so much ^^