Sexing and Aging Your Budgie

[Jenny_RS]

Date Written: July 12, 2006
Author: Jennifer
Article: Sexing and Aging Your Budgie

Sexing Your Budgie:

All budgies have ceres. The cere is the fleshy part above the beak, where the nostrils are. The best way to tell if your budgie is male or female if it is above the age of 8 months is by the color of the cere. Females' cere will be white/light blue, tan or brown and flaky if in breeding season, this includes all color varieties. The males will have a blue or purpleish-blue cere for normal varieties, and bright violet or pink for the varieties recessive pied, lutino/albino, dark-eyed clear, lacewing, and fallow. It is very difficult to sex your budgie if it is younger than 8 months because the cere has a tendency to change color.

Another way to tell if your budgie is male or female is by their behavior. Males are more vocal and have more variety in their songs than females, and the females rarely sing, or they usually make loud mad budgie sounds. Females tend to bite more than males and are more bossy. Also, males are more active and outgoing than females.

Aging Your Budgie

Here are a few ways to tell the age of your budgie. In normal color varieties, The easiest way to tell the age of your budgie is by the feathers on it's head. Budgies that are younger than 4 months will have a full head of cap feathers that are barred all the way down to the cere. At three to four months of age, the budgie will go through it's first molt, and these cap feathers will be replaced by clear, non-barred feathers. This does not apply for the color varieties Lutino/Albino and Recessive Peid. Another way to tell your budgies age is by their eyes. Young budgies (0-4 months) will have all black eyes. Budgies ranging from 4-6 months will have dark grey irises. Budgies ranging from 6-8 months will have light grey irises, and budgies ranging from 8 months and older will have all white irises.

[Dave]

Thanks for submitting an article! :)

[Jenny_RS]

Thanks, i thought it might be a good idea since there were no articles about sexing and age, so i thought why not.

[Rosie]

That's really helpful to everybody! Thanks for sharing it! :D

[Jenny_RS]

no problem, it was my pleasure :D

[Tiki<3Polly]

that article was very good

[monsoon]

good but i have to disagree with the iris stuff although mitsi's have gone lighter scoobys have not, there still dark grey.

Claire
xXx

[jayjay]

the iris thing doesn't apply to all budgies, some exceptions would be lutinos, albinos and recessive pieds. in fact, a good way of telling if you pied is dominant or not is by seeing if they get the iris ring or not

[tacoeater411]

Very helpful information!:)


Another way to tell if your budgie is male or female is by their behavior. Males are more vocal and have more variety in their songs than females, and the females rarely sing, or they usually make loud mad budgie sounds. Females tend to bite more than males and are more bossy. Also, males are more active and outgoing than females.

I never read a book about budgie behavior yet I figured these things out all on my own just from owning five budgies!:p



It is very difficult to sex your budgie if it is younger than 8 months because the cere has a tendency to change color.


That is so true! I had to change the name of my first budgie, Dasha, about four times because her cere kept changing color. When I just got her, it was a whitish color (which is normal). Then itslowly changed to blue, so I gave her a boy name. Then it changed color again and became brown. :eek: I renamed her, but the cere changed color and was once more blue. Finally it decided to turn brown again and stay that way for the rest of Dasha's life!:)

[jayjay]

yeah, budgies have that weird ability to quickly change ceres when reaching maturity to fit their real sex. jay i feel is definitely male based on behavior alone really, but his cere currently gives a different impression. however, i am confident it will turn the blue i expect it to be. kinda waiting and hoping his cere will give me a more definite answer before i get him a companion though.

[Amber]

I believe the colour changes depend on hormonal balances. for example, when male budgies have certain types of tumours, their hormones change and thus blue ceres can turn brown for a short time!

[Isabel_Kitty]

My budgie is fairly young, he still has the bars on his head. But the white feathers are just starting.

[Bea]

The iris ring thing doesn't work all the time - it varies greatly from bird to bird. I've had ones that have an obvious white iris ring by the time they were 4-5 months old. Albinos and lutinos get iris rings. The only ones that don't are recessive pieds and dark eyed clears (that i can think of).

[dd_bahama]

wow.. so neither of mine are going to get iris rings.

[Bea]

Nope - they should stay baby faced forever. <3

[alicia]

umm by birds have purpul and white in the middel what is that and the outher has pink and white in the middel whats a girl and whats a boy

[Bea]

pink indicates boy in my opinion - do you have photos of your budgies so we can tell you what they are?


I also wanted to add to this post that not all babies have head bars down to their cere:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c72/Belindas_Pets/FreshSalad002.jpg
This baby isn't even weaned yet you can see that the bars don't go right to her cere.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m217/belinda_p89/October302006-blinkiesgirlfriend027.jpg
And this baby is only about 11-12 weeks old, about the age many in pet shops are. Most budgies at this age would have bars to their cere but as you can see not all do. :)

[alicia]

ok well i don't have a camera yet :(:(:(:(:(

[Squeak_Crumble]

thanks a heap i know a lot more now

[vally]

Good infomation thanks I will mark the page vally

[kkdepp]

can there be exceptions like a budgie over 4 months and maybe already molted still having bars down to the cere?

[Deuce81]

Well this is one of those times it sucks to be partially color blind. I have a real hard time telling the color of my budgies ceres.

[fullmetalgirl]

if you post a good picture of your budgies cere on the forum other people could help you with that :)

[dt&keets]

very well put!

[x_zipped_x]

thank you for this article its very helpful

[ChicksMoma]

i found my budgie... he is pale yellow with black eyes his eyes have no iris and he is yellow with no markings really.... how would i be able to tell his age.

here is a pic from when i 1st found him 2 years ago

<a href="http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z153/skg0511/?action=view&current=Parakeet001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z153/skg0511/Parakeet001.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


heres a recent pic
<a href="http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z153/skg0511/?action=view&current=Picture015.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z153/skg0511/Picture015.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

[tomandjax]

Ok can someone help a newbie figure out what the sex of her lil keets are, would be greatly appreciated I have had different answers from different personal at the pet store. Any help would be awesome thanks so much!
Jax:budgie:

[sschlitt]

I am no expert but I think male, female, female, male????? I love the colouring though. Especially the third one. Very pretty

[Rebeccaveggie]

I think male, female, female and for the last budgie I will guess erm.....female?

[ozzie]

What a great article! Great job!

[SusanBudgies]

Ok can someone help a newbie figure out what the sex of her lil keets are, would be greatly appreciated I have had different answers from different personal at the pet store. Any help would be awesome thanks so much!
Jax:budgie:It's difficult to tell due to the flash. But I'd say male female male male.

[stacey101]

Ok can someone help a newbie figure out what the sex of her lil keets are, would be greatly appreciated I have had different answers from different personal at the pet store. Any help would be awesome thanks so much!
Jax:budgie:

Male , Female , Female , Female( last one is questionable )

[Luna_Rocks_11]

Very useful advice!!!!!!!

[Hermes]

Hello,
am sorry if this is going to be another budgie-sex determination boring request :)
this is my case:
2 years ago my budgies (kiwi and bluen) had an albino chick .
the mother died shortly afterwards (i think because of her egglayingmania)
the father and the albino lived together happily !,so i didn't care about albino's gender or about bringing kiwi a mate.
Kiwi passed away few days ago,i was very sad he was very smart and friendly we used to love him very much ,he had been with me since 6 years ago.

Now the albino seems to get scared a lot ,i feel he's unhappy and i feel sad for him.
so am thinking of getting him a partner :)

it is completely white but his feather shines some times (depending on the light/angle) with light green/purple
its cere is white but its not totally smooth (does that mean its flaky?)
it's lazy these days ,doesn't sing (before it was jealous of kiwi,and did everything kiwi did)
is it because he feels lonely or what?
one last comment is when it was a blind chick it sometimes fed its younger brother !!!
I can upload a photo of it if necessary
please help !

[Teegzy]

Ok can someone help a newbie figure out what the sex of her lil keets are, would be greatly appreciated I have had different answers from different personal at the pet store. Any help would be awesome thanks so much!
Jax:budgie:



I'd possibly say... In order of photo

Male
Female
Female
Female

:)

[miss parakeet]

thanks for posting this it was quite helpful.:)
althought i have to disagree with the below

budgies ranging from 8 months and older will have all white irises.

4 of my budgie are between 1-3 years old and their iris ring is a very light grey.
the colours are
green opaline
normal blue
pied blue
creamino


but i do think it was a helpful post

[zippy117]

...its cere is white but its not totally smooth...

That would most definitely be a female. My budgie (also a female) has a white, somewhat flaky cere. I'm sorry the parents died, it's sad :( Good luck finding a male to be the albino's partner!