# Gay cockatiels (not a joke, really...)



## quarrion queen

This is kind of an odd question but let me preface this with , i am not joking, im actually asking this. Do you think birds can be gay? 
Sunny and Cowboy are both males, 100% sure of this. Well i have tried to set them up with lots of females but they dont care. They are inseperable. They preen eachother, go on little birdie dates where they walk around and sing to eachother, cuddle, and even mate with eachother. Yeah.
So i pretty much gave up trying to find them tiel girls as they are only interested in eachother. Has anyone else experienced this in their flock?


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## tielfan

I haven't experienced it myself but same-sex couples aren't unusual in the tiel world.


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## Renae

I have a pair of males (Shiro and Freddy) that are inseparable - they feed each other, preen each other, sit with each other and all, they have a couple of times tried to mate as well.


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## enigma731

Yep, bonded same sex pairs can and do mate. I have seen this several times at a rescue.


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## Set

Henry's mate was a male. Before he passed away they would preen, mate; the whole bit. Poor Henry was absolutely sick with grief when he passed away. The only other bird he showed any amount of interest in was also a male; Crackerz, before he went to his new home. But they didn't have any time to actually bond at all.


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## quarrion queen

Shiro and freddy sound just like sunny and cow! thanks for your replies i guess it is a pretty normal thing. well if they are happy i suppose why not, although i really did want to breed sunny. ah well, gotta do what he wants right.


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## morla

Woah, that is weird!


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## chkinut

i once had 2 male finches (in a very large flight cage with 6 other finches....there were 4 males and 4 females). anyway, i had 2 males that bonded to each other....hangin out, preening etc and i didn't think much of it till i saw they were mating with each other!! then they kinda befriended a female....she laid ONE egg in a nest and they kicked her out and didn't like her anymore and they both proceeded to try to hatch this egg together! it never hatched though. but i just thought it was a strange bit of drama going on in my finch cage!


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## quarrion queen

Chkinut- it is such a little soap opera isnt it!!! sounds kinda like my guys, at one point Cowboy dated a lady but when sunny came along he pretty much dumped her at the curb. To this day she keeps to herself and is pretty wary of Sunny....
Silly things arent they...


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## chkinut

quarrion queen said:


> Chkinut- it is such a little soap opera isnt it!!! sounds kinda like my guys, at one point Cowboy dated a lady but when sunny came along he pretty much dumped her at the curb. To this day she keeps to herself and is pretty wary of Sunny....
> Silly things arent they...


that's so strange/funny!! gotta give it to 'em! birds ARE quite interesting to watch!


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## Duckybird

You should realize that applying a human term, "being gay" to animals is in very poor taste. Cockatiels are animals that have no clue what being gay means.Their brains aren't much bigger than a pea. Just like being raised soley by humans can cause a bird to view humans as their mates, so can being raised with another male cause this. In reality, it's far more natural for them to bond to another tiel, rather than scorn the other bird's companionship because it is the same gender as itself.


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## raddogz

I can't see why not. If the other bird is giving them the affection they want I don't see any issue with it.


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## Puppydog

Well, homosexuality is actually quite common in many species. I don't see the issue with calling them gay, they kinda are. I have a gay friend who calls his dogs gay. He doesn't think its in poor taste.


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## Codyandme1

I know someone with a gay pair! Lol


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## roxy culver

I think what Duckybird means is that the birds had no other choice but to bond to each other and become partners. They didn't make the conscious choice (like humans and, so I've heard, Dolphins, do) so they can't be considered gay in the human sense of the word. And if given the chance to hook up with a hen, they would, whereas a homosexual human wouldn't. I had two boys who were bonded and very close, preening each other and such, but since I got them hens, they are no longer as close as they were when babies.


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## Puppydog

People don't choose to be homosexual.


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## srtiels

I've had this happen and the vet said that the testosterone levels were so low in one male that he was giving off female pheromones. 

The vets suggestion was to set them up as a pair when I set up other pairs and foster some eggs under them, and let them raise the chicks. Their names were Ike and Guy Bird, and they were the best foster parents I ever had. In addition to fostering they would help to wean out babies. When I got down to one feeding I would put the boys in the weaning cage and they would show the baby how to eat.

Like the old saying goes: When you have Lemons make Lemonade


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## Duckybird

Puppydog said:


> People don't choose to be homosexual.


I agree. But I think it is in poor taste to compare an unusual situation between two birds to the complex relationship that gay and straight individuals have with their partners. Especially considering the turbulance and strife that homosexuals in our society experience. Reading more into an animal's behavior by giving them human feelings and emotions degrades the animal, in my opinion. Animals mate (primarily) to reproduce, whereas many humans mate soley for pleasure. Of course there are exceptions in the animal world, but I'm talking animals as a whole. And if these two birds are mating, it's not necessarily for pleasure; their environment is triggering hormonal behaviors like mating. It's not pleasure, it's instinct.

It would be like saying, "My cockatiel is a racist because he doesn't like birds that aren't colored the same as him." That's what I'm saying.


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## roxy culver

I agree...given the chance, if both of these boys were split up and given hens, they would probably breed and reproduce. Its not the same for humans. A gay man isn't going to leave his partner for a woman. That's what I meant by choice.


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## WendyBeoBuddy

i am pretty sure my two boys are bisexual because they do what you said, preen, cuddle, even contact huddling but no mating involved.. but they also follow Wendy around the cage and sing their hearts out at her.


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## Puppydog

Good points. Interesting to see what would happen.


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## enigma731

It may be inaccurate, but I'm not sure why it's any more "in poor taste" than any other human term we apply to our pets. Is it in poor taste when we talk about our birds having a "girlfriend" or "boyfriend?" Or "flirting" with one another? Or when we say a hen loves her mate? What about when we call ourselves parents of our birds? We talk about our birds having lots of preferences, favorites, emotions, etc., and with any one of these one could make the argument that the behavior is nothing more than a product of captivity. 

My point is that we commonly use lots of terms to compare our pets to humans, with the general understanding that no, it isn't a valid direct comparison. The reality is probably somewhere in between -- Just about all behavior (human or animal) is the product of innate tendencies and the environment in which we live. But I don't think it's offensive to use these terms to describe our birds, unless they are being used in a specifically derogatory way.


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## fuzzipurr

I have a pair of males that are inseparable. The preen and feed each other. I have tried to intruduce famale to them, but they are not interested. I have never seen them mate though.


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## WendyBeoBuddy

that is how my boys are fuzzipurr, but both boys are interested in Wendy and each other. Wendy however...not so interested in the boys  LOL


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## tielfan

I recommend that we stop discussing terminology and the causes of homosexual behavior before anybody gets upset. "Gay" is a politically correct word suitable for use by the mainstream news media. So in my opinion it's OK to use this word on the forum as long as it's used as a descriptive/factual term with no intention to cause insult. There are other words that are always used as a slur and those words are unacceptable here, and if someone started using the word "gay" as a slur then that would be unacceptable too. But so far that hasn't happened in this thread.


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