How do I tell if my budgie is a male or a female? The skin above its beak is blue sometimes and browmish gray other times. I cant take it to the vet (the cage wont fit in my car and it isnt hand tame) so I need to know how I can tell without some kind of complicated test or something. The budgie is about a year old, maybe a little older. Thanks!!!
PS-About how long will my budgie live?
Answers:
With adult budgies of most colours it is easy to tell male and female apart by the colour of the cere which is the bit around the nostrils, above the beak. It is blue and smooth in males, and brown and rough in females.
However, for a pet you need a baby budgie, and the younger the better. The typical blue or brown colour will not have developed at this stage. Instead, look closely for the presence or absence of white on the cere, since white is the precursor of the buff and brown shades of the female cere. Look at the actual nostrils: if there is a hint of a whitish ring around them, then the baby is probably female. If there is absolutely no white, and especially if the cere is a nice pink, and well rounded, then the baby is probably male.
An adult hen budgie's cere is like a layer cake. The bottom layer is pale blue. Over this spreads the whitish colour, and then the buff and brown shades are deposited on top of the white. Therefore, a very young baby hen may show some pale blue on her cere, but there will always be white as described above.
An adult **** budgie's cere is not a layer cake: the fleshy/pink/purple tones of the baby turn blue.
With certain fancy and pink eyed varieties, the blue of the male never develops -- the cere stays pink or flesh coloured. (The identification of some fancy colour varieties is an advanced subject, beyond the scope of this page.)
Dark shading on the beak or cere indicates only that the baby is still very young indeed, and gives no indication of sex. It is common in darker coloured chicks.
There is a subtle difference in body shape too. Young cocks tend to be more tapered, and young hens less shapely or more blunt ended (to put it in an unflattering way!)
Cere colour seems easier to distinguish at an earlier age in darker coloured individuals who have plenty of pigment in their bodies. So, if the sex of your purchase is very important to you, it may be advantageous to go for a deep coloured bird rather than a 'blond' or very fancy variety.
An important thing to know before buying oneself a pet bird is the maximum life span of the wanted species. In case of a budgie, one can expect the birds to become 10 to 12 years old if one treats them in an ideal way. But normally, budgies do not live that long. Most of the birds live for only five to ten years, which is a realistic value for their life pan. It is not possible to derive the age of a mature budgie from its outer appearance. A five years old budgie looks exactly the same as a 15 years old bird.
Statistics say that half of the budgies kept in Germany die before they become five years old because of wrong nutrition and keeping conditions. Overweight and the lack of movement make their inner organs become too fatty, which leads to failures of the bird's organs. In the worst case, they stop working without any warning. Most budgies that are overweight suffer from so-called lipoma, a special kind of fatty tumour that grows between skin and muscles.
But it is also possible that even optimally kept budgies die very young. Many of them develop tumours that cannot be stopped from growing. Scientists have not been able so far to resolve why budgies tend to develop tumours so much. In my flock, there were two cases of tumours so far. P眉nktchen got a malignant tumour in the abdominal cavity, and therefore she had to be put to sleep by a veterinarian. Vela got a kidney tomour when she was about 14 years old. The veterinary told me she would die within the next few weeks, but he recommended to wait with putting her to sleep, because in his opinion, she would be able to live without pain until a few days before her natural end. When the pain starts, it would be the right time to release her from the torture, he said. I am very glad we decided to let her live, because those "few weeks" we expected her to survive finally became 1,5 years! Vela's tumour encapsulated itself what is highly unusual, so my little budgie lady had really good luck! Up to her death, Vela had no pain caused by this tumour. In fact, she died from grief shortly after she lost her beloved mate Mira.
The age high score so far is maintained by Kiki who died on 21/04/2002. He became slightly more than 17 years old. But there is also a negative record concerning the age. After half a year of living, the cute little Ceti died. Shortly after he made his way right through my opened window from outside, the first signs of a poisoning started to show up. When he was outside in the German wilderness, he ate something poisonous, which finally killed him a few months later.
well here i found a great site that might be able to help you!
http://www.birds-online.de/allgemein/ges...
the females beak skin is brown the males is blue
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