How to tell the sex of a Budgie? – 5 Ways

If you recently bought your feather friend budgie and enjoying its company. Or you may have been lucky to be parent of newly hatched budgies. You obviously want to give your feathered friend a name. But what if you don’t know what gender it is. You will be pleased to know the simple idea on how to tell the sex of a budgie.

In this blog reading I will be answering the below listed most asked questions on the internet about budgie gender identification.

• How to tell if my budgie is male or female?
• We just picked up 3 baby budgies, can you help me with my baby budgie gender?
• How can we tell the Albino budgie gender?
• How can I determine budgie gender because I want to get him/her another friend?
• How to tell if baby budgie is male or female?
• My female budgie’s cere is more crustier and brown. Is that Okay?

How to tell the sex of a Budgie?

There are many ways of budgie sex identification, some are more precise than others. Let’s start with the most reliable method to the least reliable one.

• DNA sexing
• Egg laying
• Color of cere
• Color of feet
• Chirping and Behavior

DNA sexing

No questions asked is having a DNA test done on your bird to determine its gender.  Actually, there are parrots that are the only way to determine and be 100% sure what your parrot’s gender is. However, budgies gender are easier to know and no need for DNA test.

The test will be accurate if done correctly but there is always the chance of human error in reading the results.

Egg laying

The second method is kind of obvious and reliable. If your budgie is laying eggs, well, guess what gender it is. You see, sometimes they can help you determine what they’re doing there by just laying eggs and sit on them so you can be sure it’s a female.

Note that not all females will lay eggs. Lack of egg laying ability does not make it male. At this condition, we need to take help of other methods of budgie sex identification.

Color of cere

There is a simple way to identify whether your budgie is a male or a female. Above your budgie’s beak, there is a cere that can be in various colors depending on your budgie’s gender. The cere is a fleshy covering which is located directly above its beak that contains the nostrils. Consider we are looking at healthy budgies because some of these may interfere with the cere color.

Female Budgie

One of the easiest ways to tell if it’s a female, it’s her white or pale blue cere. As she becomes more fertile and ready to lay eggs, she would have a brown cere and it usually means she is in breeding mood. Sometimes the cere may be crusty as well.

Female baby Budgie

Female baby budgies under four months will have a combination of pink, white, and pale blue tones on their cere. They will never have only pink cere. As they grow and are ready to breed, their cere becomes crustier and thicker with new tones and sometimes darker tones of brown.

Adult females have a pale blue or white cere as well. The cere in females is more notable because you can see cere sometimes with pale blue color and suddenly it becomes brown when she’s in breeding mood. Some people freak out, what’s going on with my budgie? Well, don’t worry. It’s hormonal and will be okay after her breeding mood.

Male Budgie

Adult males, on the other hand, would have a royal blue colored cere during breeding condition and it is a bit lighter during normal condition. Sometimes, the vibrant color can appear purple-blue.

Male baby Budgie

Now we have talked about the adults. As for younger ones, before they mature, they have different cere colors.
Usually young males have pink cere and more even color across the cere and around the nostril. As they grow, the cere will turn purple and then royal blue. Usually their cere starts to change when they are close to their first molt and that is around five to 7 months old.

But like always, there are two exceptions. For example, recessive pied males stay with their purple cere even after they mature. It never becomes royal blue like the others.

Here is an example of two brothers, 1 has a blue cere while his recessive pied brother didn’t change the cere color and it will stay like that all of his life.

Identifying Albino Budgie gender

Baby Albino budgies under four months are difficult to determine because both males and females have similar color of the cere. But as the females become more mature, their cere will turn nude and brownish, while adult albino males will have a pink cere.

Identifying Lutino Budgie gender

Lutino male budgies will always have a pinkish cere, while female budgies will turn nude and brown as they mature.

Color of feet

You will be able to tell how budgies are maturing in age, particularly after they are 12 months old, by looking at the legs and feet of the budgie. The cere of a budgie/parakeet is not the only body part that is affected by sex hormones.

You will also see hormones at work on the skin of the legs and feet of a budgie/parakeet. Mature male budgies over the age of 12 months have feet and legs that closely resemble their cere, a bright blue color. Mature female budgies over the age of 12 months have feet and legs that are either pink or brown in color.

Chirping and Behavior

The least reliable method of identifying male and female budgies is their behavior. The main reason why this method is very unreliable, because budgies really have so many different and various personalities. But it could be helpful sometimes to give you a hint, but you could always be wrong with determining their sex by looking at their behavior.

Males are known for being much noisier than females, but they will chirp or sing, and the sound can be quite long. While female buddies make sounds too, they usually sound angry unlike musical. Females are also more aggressive and grumpy. Male bob their heads up and down, or tap their beak against their cage or companion. Chirping is also one of the signs of a happy budgie.

Males also regurgitate food. This is actually one of the signs to show the female budgie that they are healthy and capable enough to bring food to her so she could take care of the babies.

However, any of these behaviors we just discussed could be done by either males or females, So it’s not really reliable. But if you had to guess, there is a high chance you could be right.

I hope this reading answered the question “how to tell the sex of a budgie”. If you are planning to tame your budgie to come to you or to follow your words, here’s a guide on how to tame your budgie to come to you.

Now check with your budgie if you could tell if your budgie is male or female, comment the gender.