Gabe's a girl!

[asterroc]

DNA sexing results came back today on Gabriel. She's female!

As mentioned before, Gabe's a lutino cockatiel, which cannot be visually sexed with complete reliability, though there can be clues. The things that led me to guess so were faint spots on the undersides of flight feathers, faint stripes on undersides of tail feathers, and faint pearling on her back (so she's actually lutino pearled). DNA sexing confirmed my suspicion: it's a girl!

Now I know to keep making sure she doesn't get triggers to lay eggs, and to make sure she gets a calcium block in case she ever does start laying. Her name is remaining Gabriel though - gender of name doesn't make a difference to her, and I find it amusing.

Gratuitous photo!



Doesn't she look all sorts of coy there? You can actually see the pearling in this photo pretty well - it's the yellow splotches on her shoulders.

X-posted to my blog, parrot_lovers, and cockatiels.

Comments

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Yes, your Gabe-girl is gorgeous! I love how clearly this photo shows both her character and her phenotype.

For a year I thought that Ernestine was Ernest. Then I learned better. It's okay if she decides to lay eggs; I just hope that they don't get stuck, which can sometimes happen (shudders at the thought).

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly why I wanted to know Gabe's gender - it's called egg-binding in birds. You can prevent egg-binding through a good diet, and most importantly through removing environmental cues that could trigger egg-laying in the first place! For example, putting her to bed on time makes her think it's winter b/c of getting little sunlight, so she's less likely to lay. If Gabe'd turned out male, it wouldn't've been an issue.