# Cockatiel sex confusion



## Ziyaad (Jun 23, 2018)

Hi. I am new to this forum and new to cockatiels. I bought 2 white face grey cockatiels. One i was told is a female and the other white face grey a male. I bought them from different breeders. I put them to together and in about 3 months all the signs of a bonded pair where visible. How ever i was left surprised when i saw the one that i thought is a female mounted on top of the one a thought is a male. This did not make sense to me and got me highly confused. Is it possible that both are females? Will 2 females behave like a bonded pair? I have 2 other white face grey tiels in the aviary as well. One is a male and the other im not sure about. Any advice on how to check or what i should do? I have attached pictures of the tail feathers of the 2 bonded tiels.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Both birds are whiteface pied, and pied birds frequently can't be visually sexed. Males can keep their juvenile markings for years, or can have grizzling on their tailfeathers that resembles juvenile markings but is actually just splotchy coloring caused by the pied gene. 

there aren't any markings on a pied feather, so the white wing and tail feathers won't tell you anything about the bird's sex. Based on what I can see, the mostly-white bird in the second picture seems to have a couple of solid colored tail feathers. But it's possible that this is pied grizzling, so I wouldn't be too confident that this is a male. 

It's not too common, but sometimes a female will mount the male if she's frustrated because she wants to mate and he's not doing his part. But if they were actually mating (not just standing on each other), it's most likely that the one on top is male and the one on the bottom is female. 

DNA sexing is the best way to find out what sex these birds really are. But as long as you have one male and one female, you'll still be able to get babies.


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## Ziyaad (Jun 23, 2018)

Thank you. I will look into surgical sexing.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

It's not surgical sexing...DNA sexing is just a DNA sample analyzed by a lab. Nothing surgical about it.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Surgical sexing was what they did before DNA testing was invented. It's not used any more, because DNA testing is easier and less risky.


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