Is the IRN a male or Female? Confused.com

[Wakizashi21]

Is this a male or a female?? im confused now. When i bought this IRN the owner said hes a Male. But im confused. Anyone?

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/4zny.gif/

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/823/8ktr.jpg/

[Wakizashi21]

Sorry couldnt make a better photo. Only allowed 500KB. its a young IRN about 13 or 14 months

[Wakizashi21]

Changed topic Name

[Skyes_crew]

Judging by the pale green line over the back of the neck and the age of the bird I'm going to say its a hen. But don't quote me on that lol.

[Wakizashi21]

do you think its a female? The ring has not fully appeared yet and his bites arnt very harsh (thank god he doesnt bite hard at all). However i think looking at the back of his head the hens do have a more of a round head compared to the males who are much flatter. (not 100%).

[InTheAir]

Can you tell by behaviour?
We can tell our bird is a boy because he does a boydance to the bathroom mirror and tries to feed it. He is only a year old, so his ring is just a pale one like on your bird.

[Wakizashi21]

Is there a possible chance you could record ur little IRN to show me what the dance would look like?

[MissK]

She can just draw you a picture. Very talented, is InTheAir.

[SCB 22]

Typical male behaviour : Will put their wings out into the "heart" shape and bow down / tap his beak to items. Also easier to teach males to talk.

Typical female behaviour : will crouch down with wings slightly out, while pinning her eyes, with head tipped back making clucking sounds.

Hope this helps.

[SCB 22]

Am unable to post pics at the moment, as imageshack is down, but will put some up as soon as i can

[Wakizashi21]

Ahhh hopefully will get to see the video soon! haha thanks in advance!

[SCB 22]

Here is typical male and female behaviour. The green is obviously the male, they stand tall, and put their wings out and display, where as the female - the grey turq - will crouch down, tipping her head back and putting her wings out slightly for the male....



Also bear in mind your bird is still young, males take up to 3 years to get their rings.

[InTheAir]

Great pic, scb.

[Skyes_crew]

That pic should be used as the model for "what behavior is this" in a sticky lol

[SCB 22]

lol, thank you

[MissK]

That's a really great picture - nice looking birds displaying typical behaviour, very clear.

Just one question - shouldn't you conceal their identities before posting stuff like that on the web?

[InTheAir]

Missk, they still have their feathers on. .. Don't be such a prude

[ellieelectrons]

I've heard it is especially common for young birds to exhibit both male and female behaviours. In my two birds, (I have a male and female), I've never seen either of them adopting the stance of the other and the photos SCB posted, I thought showed the different stances really well.

Rritoch - with the two birds in the video, firstly, is the bird doing the regurgitating definitely female (that is, is she mature?) Secondly, does she do this behaviour when she is not regurgitating food? Just interested.

Ellie.

[ellieelectrons]

Hi rritoch

Thanks for the extra info. That's really interesting. It makes me wonder if that kind of behaviour is common... although I'm guessing you've probably discussed that on another thread.

Ellie.

[ellieelectrons]

Interesting - thanks!

Ellie.

[SCB 22]

Typical male behaviour : Will put their wings out into the "heart" shape and bow down / tap his beak to items. Also easier to teach males to talk.

Typical female behaviour : will crouch down with wings slightly out, while pinning her eyes, with head tipped back making clucking sounds.

Hope this helps.

I must somewhat disagree with this. As you can partially see in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJBzMCK2AO4 females often mimic male mating behaviors. As a general rule, 2 years old and no rose colored ring, and you have yourself a female. Breeders aren't known for being honest when it comes to gender of IRN's, they each have their own Voodoo techniques for determining gender and their methods are often less accurate than a coin-toss. That light-green ring though is a fairly clear indicator of it being a female.

Hi there, - just to say i didnt say it will be 100% accurate, i just said, the "typical" behaviour. The green male their i thought was female until he was exactly 3 years old, as he never displayed or danced, and only got his ring at 35 months. So yes, behaviour is never a given, purely a good indication....

[ellieelectrons]

Agreed

Ellie

[SCB 22]

Hi there, i dont have any pics of him when he was younger, but here is one of his offspring from last year, what would you guess it to be? I know the sex, but lets see. (photos arent the best but all i have on my work pc!)

He did have the distinct lighter ring around, which was why we thought he was a girl till he shocked us all and started with his black ring feathers that year!









oh and congrats!! My 3 eggs are due to hatch in the next 7 days so im holding thumbs!

[SCB 22]

The bird is 12months this month... And the lack of tail, is thanks to my other bird Peanut who decided he didnt like the poor things tail... Also bear in mind, some pics are taken with flash, some not so it affects the colouring in general, makes some things darker and lighter than they are really So based on age, you still say male?

[SCB 22]

What would you say this one is ?

It is a year old in October.

[ellieelectrons]

Someone in our avicultural club believes that males are more likely to leave the nest first because the male forces them out. This is not something I know anything about, but thought I'd mention it.

Ellie.

[SCB 22]

Both.... are .....

MALES!!!

[jmlw7]

Hi everyone - just piping in that our 1 year old IRN, Remy, who we believe is a female because of her crouching and pinning and clucking... also does the heart shaped mating thing in the mirror.

Our IRN is also extremely noisy, screamy and clingy and likes floors like females who are ready to breed like.

However, she is so young that if she gets a ring in the next couple of years, we will be baffled as we thought her behavior is female hormonal. who knows though really? We never tested her, but so many people who get dna sex tests find the tests were wrong anyway.

For now, we are happy that Remy's name can be suitable for both genders lol

[Skyes_crew]

Looking at just the first two pics of that blue I would have said female. The last pic is a dead give away to a male. I have learned not to go by just the neck ring and behaviors. Heck even a DNA can be wrong sometimes lol. I had my female DNA'd last march, feather, and it came back male. Not a single female behavior that I can think of until this last August which made me question the results. I retested, blood this time, and she came back female. She has a very dark shadow under and a pronounced light blue across her nape.



Now for this one...only thing I will tell you is it is a rising one year old. For those that know the bird, keep it fair please

[Skyes_crew]

The violet is actually a blood DNA'd male. Most people who see him comment that he looks like a female. Just another reason that you can't always go by the look of a bird

[Wakizashi21]

Wow im actually loving the pictures! just come back from spain! (AWESOME) and missed cheeko hell of alot tbh... buh i kno hes close with my mum too so she looked after Cheeko well....

TBH...i havnt seen my bird do any of those dances yet loool! i know Cheeko stands up tall and is starting to make alot of noise downstairs. Im still really concious... haha im thinking maybe ill post some videos of Cheeko just to keep things interesting haha

Ohh one quick question....i do give him a bath every week on wednesdays. Is that enough? Live in the UK so its kinda getting colder...atm its 15c but it will drop soon.

and keep up by posting pictures of the IRNS. Its totally exciting! maybe should put some pics up and let people guess the sex haha