Male and Female Parakeets

User Question
How do you tell if a parakeet is male or female, (besides the obvious)?

Lisa's Answer
I'm not sure what you mean by "the obvious" :) On a parakeet the obvious thing is the cere, or nose. That's part of the FAQ -

http://www.lisashea.com/petinfo/articles/bird_faq.html

If you mean by sex organs those are NOT obvious at all and normally can't be used for that reason. It's extremely hard (if not impossible) to see a parakeet's sex organ. There are a lot of feathers in the way.

Some people try to guess because of "mating behavior" - because one keet gets on top of another. However, both males and females will do that.

Even the cere is just a guess though. The only way to know for sure is to go to a vet and get the bird DNA sexed. Or if it lays an egg, it's pretty certainly a female ;)

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