Perruche

Sexing a budgerigar is not obvious during the first part of its life. Indeed, the only real way is DNA testing, which remains the most reliable. There are nevertheless some tips to recognize the sexes:

the female has a wax composed of several superimposed layers. The base color is pale blue, followed by a white layer then beige/brown. There are many variations in shades, shapes, thickness and textures for a female's wax. During periods of hormonal rise, the wax becomes thicker (crusty) and brown, while during periods of hormonal decline, the wax is very often pale blue with nostrils surrounded by white. Young females (less than 3-4 months) have wax similar to periods of hormonal decline; the wax of a male, on the other hand, is composed of only one layer, blue. Its wax does not present as many variations as that of the female, and is, in adult subjects, a frank and smooth blue, indigo or a mixture (sometimes with a little white around the nostrils, but never a pale blue). In certain mutations, sexing will be different. The male will have a reddish-purple wax for life. This generally applies to budgerigars of mutations such as inos, fallows, Danish pieds, etc. The male has the top of the beak blue and the female pink or light brown. Domestic varieties exist with many colors. Some mutations, such as yellow (lutino) and blue, are determined by a simple gene and emerged spontaneously. The combination of mutations can result in new colors (lutino and blue results in albino). Other color varieties are the result of selective breeding resulting in more complex patterns. The Budgerigar can have color mutations and pattern mutations. There are two basic color series:

the green series where the bird is capable of synthesizing the yellow dye in its feathers: psittacine. When the bird also synthesizes black color (melanization) a blue effect occurs. The natural combination of yellow and blue gives the green budgerigar (or all other parakeets or parrots with green hue); the blue series includes birds that cannot (genetically) synthesize yellow pigments. Only melanins remain which by particular reflection called Tyndall effect (named after the researcher who highlighted it), give the blue color. When the bird cannot synthesize melanins, the bird may appear:

either yellow because it manages to synthesize the yellow pigment called psittacine; it is the lutino parakeet, with red eyes because melanin has completely disappeared; or white (which is albino) which produces no melanin because it is a lutino but also no psittacine because it is also a blue. A mutation that adds two base colors: gray. An important color mutation in the budgerigar is called gray, in the blue series. When this mutation is found in the green series, there is no dominance between green and gray, they mix which gives gray-green that recalls the colors of military clothing said drab green or khaki. Thus in budgerigar competition one judges in 4 series: green, blue, gray-green and gray. A budgerigar can also have pattern mutations:

the lines on the back from the top of the head to between the shoulders are reduced or even disappeared, but the black scales of the wings are present, this is the opaline mutation. The color of the belly remains unchanged, it can be seen on the shoulder between the black scales of the wing feathers. There are also