Expert: Kyle Lohr - 7/19/2009

Question
Hi, ive had my budgie 'budgie' for 13 months and a couple months ago he reached sexual maturity and started trying to mate with everything, including us! he bacame aggressive so we had to get him a little girlfriend, we got him a very young lutino bird -its eyes were still huge. Budgie happily tried to mate with it but the new friend wasnt having it!, its been about 4 weeks now and budgie has given up and gone back to his habit of mating with his toys but thankfully not us and he isnt aggressive. However we are now unsure if the new lutino is a girl, its now a bit older and its eyes arent quite so button like i can see a little bit of the whites of its eyes and its cere which was originally pink  has become a light blue and its still smooth. Furthermore  i read online that in lutino mutations the males have pink ceres! we are completely confused, and would budgie have tried to mate with it for all those weeks if the lutino is indeed a boy?!

Answer
Hello Yamama,
I would say if your male parakeet was trying to breed with the lutino parakeet, it means it is a female. Parakeets know better than humans what sex their partners are.
THe reason the female refused the male could be a number of reasons. Either she sees that there is no nesting box [[you didnt mention one]] or she is just too young, and shes not ready. If there arent any Iris Rings around her eyes [[they need to be vivid]] shes not ready to breed. Also, if her cere isnt a brown color, it means shes not ready to breed either.
That would be another way you could tell if she were a female, when her Iris rings become prominant, her cere should become brown. If it does not, it could be a male.

My guess would be a female, since you male mounted her. He wouldnt have made a mount if he new it was a male. They would have fought instead.

Hope i Helped! Good Luck!