What color is she considered?

[Jerica]

I am hoping to adopt two cockatiels from my college when I leave in May. One that I want is a normal grey male, the other I am trying to figure out. I think she is a female (under the tail pattern) but I'm trying to figure out her coloration. I think she might be a pied pearl, but I'm unsure. She already says "hello" in the whistley voice and she is a sweetheart. The male I want says "hello" also. I am not wanting to breed them so I'm not going to provide a nest box or anything when I get them, for the most part the cockatiels were in a huge aviary type cage, now they are split up into smaller cages and they've only had them breed in the big cage. I'm not too worried about them breeding. Anyway, do you think she might be a pied pearl, just pied? or what exactly. The male I think has a pied gene in him as he has some whitish/yellow feathers scattered around the head. In any sense I just want to know what her coloring is considered just to know, I think she is georgous and she also is sweet, she is the only cockatiel here that will step up and let you pet her.

[Shockadine]

Good luck with the tiels. You are right. She is pearl pied. I'm not sure whether or not the coloring on the male would indicate that he has the pied gene. You said they had set them up for breeding before. Did they ever produce? If he were just a pied with little pattern or a pied split, some pied babies would have shown up, if these were the two they paired up. If he was not pied there wouldn't be any visual pied babies.

Hope you get to adopt the birdies.

[Jerica]

:) yay, it makes me happy when I identify tiel colors right, thanks :) I tell people here what color the cockatiels are and they just stare at me blankly lol. They had all the cockatiels (8 of them) in an aviary type cage. A couple of the greys produced some greys, all of them for the most part have little yellow or white feathers a little bit around the head and some along the back. They also some have yellowing in the white stripe on the wings. The female thats with the male I want has some white feathers on the head and a few on her back. I don't think this pair ever produced, but a couple of greys did produce one chick who turned out grey, I can't remember if any of them had white/yellow feathers, but the male I want never bred. He is with another grey right now now that the birds are in seperate cages (they are using the aviary cage for some pigeons). I'm still trying to decide if I want to adopt just this pretty girl or if I do want two.

There is also another cockatiel who I think is a cinnamon pearl pied, she has a soft brown instead of any grey, but otherwise looks very similar to the girl I want. I'm considering getting this one instead of the male, but yet now that the male gave me a nasty painful bite it makes me want to get him to prove I can tame him. (most the birds are mean and unsocialized, the girl I want is the only one who will perch on fingers as far as I know). There is also a lutino tiel that I'm considering, don't know how friendly he/she is. Now that I think of it she/he may be a lutino pearl, cause in the pic I took she looks like she has faint yellow pearling. Anyway, its hard to decide who to get, I know I want this pearl pied girl, but if I get a second one I don't know who to pick. I try not to pick based on color, but there are some pretty ones here at the school, we have animals donated all the time and we get some georgous animals of all kinds (like the parakeet I'm considering too who I'm going to post about in a minute to determine color).

That bite that the male I wanted gave to me was so bad, I didn't get mad though cause he is not socialized and he kind of flew all over terrified and once I got him to stay on the counter I tried to get him to step up, and he bit down hard and twisted his beak and it was worse than being pinched by needle nose pliers as hard as someone can squeeze. But I sat there and took it hoping he'd learn to not bite, we'll see... I want to tame him, but on the other hand I want to adopt animals from the school that are closer to tame cause none of them are handled here and I might as well take the ones who are a little friendlier than the biting ones. I have tamed tiels before, but they didn't bite this hard. I don't know how to decide. I know I'll be getting this girl (still need to come up with a better name than Baby, its cute, but I want something better). Thanks, I should be able to adopt any of the cockatiels I want because no one else wants them and I just have to buy them at the auction. They mostly just adopt to vet tech students or someone a vet tech student knows. Thanks again.

[dlaura]

Good luck with them whatever you decide. They are very pretty little ones.

[Kaye]

I'd say she's a mutation we like to call "beautiful." ;)

(I know nothing of cockatiel mutations, but wow!)

[Jerica]

Thanks you guys, I'm still trying to decide if I want just her or her and one of the other tiels. I might just get her so I can work solely with her becoming more tame and train tricks. I've been going everyday to hold her and work with her. Yesterday I was able to get her to step on to my hand while in her cage so I could take her out. She also will occasionaly step on to my hand when on top of her cage. The other tiels just always try biting or running off. Mostly the other two I'm interested in (the one that appears to be a cinnamon pied pearl and the one that appears to be a lutino pearl) they seem just scared, but don't really try biting, just opening their mouth and hissing and running away. I keep trying to decide if I'm going to work with that grey male anymore, I would need gloves cause I don't think I can handle another painful bite like the one he gave me before.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go play with the tiels now. I think this girl is going to become a very sweet little tiel. :)

[Jerica]

Well I now am pretty positive the tiel I thought was a cinnamon pearl pied is, she just has to be. She actually has more pearling than this first girl, and then has cinnamon instead of grey. I discovered today she is incredably sweet, maybe more than this one. She is also about 11 years old. They call her Reba. I think I've decided to name this first girl Caera (pronounced keer-a) which means friend in Irish. Now I need a new name for Reba (I don't care of it) in case I decide to get her also. Reba lets me kiss her on the beak and rub against her head with my chin and cheek, she seems to enjoy being scratched on her neck :) Anyway I finally found out how sweet she was cause I decided to take her out of the cage, then found out her leg band was cutting off the circulation on her foot so we had to use a dental circular saw to cut it off, its metal and a closed band. She was pretty good though, kind bit at me, but not too hard. Anyway I'd love to adopt her and Caera(used to be named Baby). I just hope that I can, I still need to talk to one of the instructors. I'm also hoping to try and tame the other tiels so they are left with just nasty mean tiels. (there is one male who will attack no matter what, he had a broken wing and still can't fly his wing is still messed up, we was the mate to Caera, but they were seperated cause of feather picking) I may not be able to tame Stuart- the attacker, but maybe the other ones. It's kind of become my mission lol, I still have a few months till I leave school.

[Jerica]

I forgot to update this with the sad news. First of all I found out I probably couldn't adopt any of the cockatiels currently I don't even have a place to live after college. Then the worst news :( Stuart the one everyone thought was so mean who I found out wasn't that bad, ended up dying of unknown causes, we assume he was old. Second of the worst news is beautiful Baby (who I sorta renamed Caera) was killed by a dog when someone was holding her I guess someone had a dog out too and the dog killed her :( I couldn't believe it, I wasn't there so I don't know all the details, but this beautiful bird is now across the rainbow bridge with her former mate Stuart. :(

[HurdyBirdy]

That is sad news about the cockatiels. Very few birds die of "old age" so there may have been something else going on. If everything goes right a cockatiel can live into its mid-twenties. I had a lutino cockatiel named Baby as a teen that was accidentily killed by the family dog. Is that the one that was in the pictures in your first post. My feeling on that bird is that it is/was a male -- the pearl markings were more like a male with a few left-over spots than a female pearl -- and males are more likely to talk. Cockatiels can be great birds so maybe someday you will get a chance to adopt when the time is right.

[Jerica]

I don't really know what happened with Stuart, he did have a few other problems, actually now that I think of it they said he stopped eating after awhile and they couldn't get him to eat anything, so that is probably what killed him, we don't know what was going on with him. He was a very cranky bird because he couldn't fly do to having had a broken wing that never healed and he started feather picking too. I really don't know. Yes Baby is the one pictured above, she was a female, she laid eggs, Stuart was her mate. I think that maybe Baby's pearling wasn't as good as most female pearls because she was a pied pearl and so that kind of messed with her pearling I do see why you would think she might be male, but she did lay eggs. Thanks. Yes sometime I hope to adopt some tiels again (along with some other animals too)