# What genders?



## Rainbow (Mar 23, 2011)

Hey everyone,

My breeding pair have recently had a gorgeous clutch of four little troublemakers. They are 10-weeks-old now and I'm still trying to determine what genders they are. I have attached some photos. To my knowledge they are pearl-pied? Their mother is a pearl lutino and their father is a normal grey split with whiteface I think (he has a white ring around his neck). The genetics confuse the **** out of me, I know some mutations are sex-linked but I'm still struggling to get my head around it.

Any help would be very much appreciated. :flowers:


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## xoxsarahxox (Dec 13, 2010)

They are all pearls, I dont see any indication of them being pied, so they are just pearls. Since mom is a lutino pearl these babies can be either gender. 

With sex-linked mutations ( pearl, lutino, cinnamon, slyc) if the babies are that mutation but the mother is NOT that mutation those babies are female, if the mother IS that mutation then the babies can be either sex.

You can read about sex-linked mutations here, http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=26845

Srtiels uses this method to sex young pearls which might help, http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/...ds/?action=view&current=Young-Pearl-ILLUS.jpg


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## Mentha (Jul 11, 2010)

Need a better picture of the tail feathers. From what I remember the tip of a male's center two tail feathers will be solid, while a female won't. 

http://www.talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=18307&highlight=sexing+pearls 

Scroll down to post #5, srtiel's post, there is an illustration.

So I'd say the second one in on the top picture is a probably male which would make him pearl split to lutino & wf, the others, I need better pictures of.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

I agree that all are pearls with no sign of pied, and can be either sex. Any boys will be split to lutino since they got the gene from their mother; girls can't get sex-linked genes from their mother. 

Your father bird must be at least split to pearl in order to get pearl babies. Since all the babies are pearl, I wonder if he is visual pearl and not just split. Male pearls lose the pearl markings when they mature and look pretty much like a normal grey, but will have some mottling at the top end of their tail feathers. Here are pictures from srtiels' photo album at http://s525.photobucket.com/albums/cc331/Mousebirds-and-more/Cockatiel Mutations/?start=all :


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## lilbear (Aug 2, 2012)

They are all so cute


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## Rainbow (Mar 23, 2011)

Wow guys! Thanks so much for all your pointers! 

The father has absolutely no mottling anywhere, he is nearly black he is so grey (including all his tail feather above and underneath). But now I'm confused, does that mean he must carry the pearl gene if all the babies are pearl?? I thought only the mother had to carry it (which she does)...Oh dear, I'm not very good at this. :blush:

After chaos trying to get a tail-feather photo of everyone, I had no such luck. I did however catch each of them briefly to have a look at their tail undersides and from what I can gather we have three females and a male. Three had about half a cm of grey on the tips of all tail feathers, then yellow, whereas the one I think is a male had about 2cms of grey on the two innermost tail feathers (the longest). Makes sense too, that one has just started copying our tame birds and whistling away to itself. I've only ever sexed them on behaviour before and at the 12-week mark the boys seem to start chattering away.  That one was also the most snuggly when they were younger, which may not mean anything but from what I've experienced the boys have all been big sooks.

Thanks so much again, I'll definitely refer back to this if we get more pearls. Polly (the mamma) has just hatched three more little ones out of a five-egg clutch so it'll be exciting to see what colours and personalities we have in that bundle!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Pearl is a sex-linked recessive mutation with complicated inheritance rules. The full story of how it works is at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=26845

The short version of the story is that you won't get any pearl chicks at all unless the father is at least split to pearl (hens can't be split; if they have the gene at all they'll be visual). A male with the pearl gene can produce pearl daughters no matter what color the mother is; but to get pearl sons the mother has to be visual pearl.

With a pearl mother and a split pearl father you'd expect half the babies to be pearl. Getting four pearl chicks and no normal greys might just be a statistical fluke; it's not that unusual. If there are any non-pearl babies in the next clutch that's proof that he's just split. But if this pair continues to produce nothing but pearl babies, then after they've had about 10 chicks total it's fairly safe to assume that he's actually visual pearl.


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## Rainbow (Mar 23, 2011)

In their last clutch a year ago they had pearls, but in the clutch before that they had one pied baby (yellow/grey) with no pearl patterning. So he's just split to pearl, not visual?


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

It sounds like he's just split, but it also sounds like they had an extraordinary run of pearls. These things can happen though. Shodu is whiteface and her mate Buster is split, so 50% of their babies are expected to be whiteface. But there were no whiteface babies in their first 8 chicks, and I decided that Buster must not be split whiteface after all when baby #9 proved that he really was.


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## Rainbow (Mar 23, 2011)

Haha, awesome. Your two are gorgeous! I love it when they surprise you with unexpected colours or personalities.


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## mitch2006 (Jan 15, 2011)

what adorable babies you have there


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## fastjosh007 (Sep 27, 2012)

well one way is to watch their behavior... very very carefully... google will explain female behaviors and male behaviors because they is way too many for me to write down right now


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