We have three beautiful cockatiels. One normal grey cock (male) named "Spice", one lutino hen (female) named "Sugar", and a normal pearl split for pied named "Johnny."


Spice in the picture alongside is the normal color of the cockatiel. Normal is a grey body with a brilliantly colored head. Then normal grey (the color commonly found in the wilds of Australia) is one of the few cockatiel mutations that can be visually sexed because only the males have the clearly colored facial markings seen in the picture alongside here. Female normal grey cockatiels have a gray wash over the colors and almost no yellowing.


Normal greys have a white band on their wings as well but the rest of their body is various shades of gray.

Sugar is a lutino cockatiel. This mutation is completely white or yellow except for the facial markings. The lutino is impossible to visually sex. However, MOST lutinos are female as it is a sex linked color mutation. Male is only possible in this color if the father was visually lutino as well.

Johnny is a pearl cock (male) cockatiel. The reason I used this picture is to illustrate why he is a pearl. There are 'paintbrush' markings on his wings above the white band that are the remenants of pearling. A male pearl will loose almost all of the pearl coloring (it is another of the sex linked  mutations and only females retain their baby pearling). He also has some small white flecks on the back of his head (not visible in picture) that indicates he is "split for pied" meaning he carries the gene for white body markings but it is recessive. If mated to another tiel also split for pied or visually pied he would produce pied babies. Not that we intend to do that...  lol.

For comparison this is a picture of Spice's back showing the solid grey feathering.