COCKATIEL MUTATIONS
There are many different mutations of cockatiels, and it is sometimes confusing as to which mutation your cockatiel may be. Some cockatiels are even a combination of several mutations. Hopefully the following article will help to take some of the confusion out of cockatiel mutations.
BABY COCKATIELS
The most important thing to remember about baby cockatiels is that you cannot tell the difference between the sexes visually. ALL baby cockatiels will visually look like females. It is not until a cockatiel is 6 months old that it will start its first moult and get its adult feathers. Then, depending on the mutation, you can determine visually if it is male or female.
Sometimes, if a baby cockatiel is heard whistling, it is more likely a male, as only males will whistle and talk. However, you can sometimes (very rarely) get a young female that will whistle and then grow out of it.
Occasionally you can determine definite male or female baby cockatiels from the genetics as certain mutations are sex-linked, so depending on what colour the parents are you can sometimes accurately predict the sex of the babies.
THE COLOURS (more pictures coming soon)
There are 7 basic colours of cockatiels, plus various combinations of these basic colours. The basic colours/mutations are grey, pearl, pied, lutino, cinnamon, platinum, white-faced. Other colours are available, however they are not as common.
GREY - (strictly speaking this is not a mutation as it is the colour found in the wild)
The grey cockatiel is mainly grey, with a white stripe down each wing. The males will develop a bright yellow face, with the females retaining the grey face.
Females, and babies, will have stripes on the underside of the tail, and on the underside of the wing feathers. These stripes are lost in the males at the 6 month moult.
PEARL
The pearl cockatiel has a scalloped appearance due to the loss of melanin on the middle part of the feathers, resulting in a feather with a white or yellowish middle and a dark margin. The degree of pearling is variable. Some have only a few feathers lightly pearled while others (sometimes called lacewings) are extremely heavily pearled with little of the dark margin to the feather remaining. The female in the photo is moderately pearled.
Female pearl cockatiels will retain their pearl markings throughout their life, while male pearls will begin to lose them as new feathers replace the baby feathers during their first moult. By the time a male is around 12 months old virtually all trace of their pearl origins has disappeared, except for possible "ghost" pearl markings on some wing feathers. They are however still pearl cockatiels able to pass on their pearl gene to any offspring.
LUTINO
Lutino cockatiels have a yellowish body with the orange cheek patch. The intensity of the yellow can vary from very golden yellow to an almost white colour, however all have the orange cheek patch and also all have a red eye. There are no grey or cinnamon feathers at all on the bird.
The underwing stripe in the females is still present, however it can sometimes be hard to discern as it is normally a darker yellow on the lighter yellow of the wing colour.
It is possible to get lutino pied, lutino pearl-pied and lutino pearl cockatiels. With these birds the areas that would have had grey feathers will instead have a deeper yellow colour. Male lutino pearls will loose the pearling when they mature from 6 months old.
Lutinos, whether plain, pied or pearl, almost always have a bald spot on the back of their head behind the crest and it is a genetic feature of lutinos. The size of the bald patch will vary from bird to bird and will be retained for the rest of their life. By selective breeding methods some breeders have been able to eliminate this bald patch but the majority of lutinos still retain it.
PLATINUM
This is similar to the lutino cockatiel, but has a light silvery grey colouring to the feathers. Otherwise, sexing techniques are similar to the lutino cockatiel.
PIED
The pied mutation is extremely variable in the amount of grey versus yellow on the bird. A cockatiel that has more grey than yellow is termed a dominant pied.
A cockatiel that has more yellow than grey is termed a reverse pied. In its extreme form, a reverse pied may have no grey feathers at all, being distinguished from a lutino only by a dark toe-nail or having a black eye rather than a red eye.
Pied cockatiels are unique among the cockatiels as it is very difficult or impossible to tell the sex of them visually. Both male and female can look identical. Observing the behaviour of pied cockatiels is the best clue that you will get to their sex.
 CINNAMON
The Cinnamon mutation occurs when the normal grey is replaced by a light brown "cinnamon" colour.
The male cinnamons will get a bright yellow head, whereas the females will stay the same as the babies.
There are also other combinations of cinnamon, including cinnamon pied and cinnamon pearl. Sexing these birds is similar to the normal pied and pearl mutations.
PEARL-PIED
This is a combination of the pearl and the pied mutation. Male pearl-pied cockatiels will usually lose all the pearl markings to look like a pied cockatiel (there are sometimes exceptions to this rule however).
As with the pieds, there can be dominant pearl-pieds and reverse pearl-pieds.
WHITE-FACED MUTATIONS
This is a recessive mutation that is actually a blue, identical genetically to a blue Indian Ringneck for example, but showing up in cockatiels as grey. In a white-face, all yellow and orange is lost from the bird’s colour.
White-faced grey
These are grey with a white stripe on each wing. The males will develop a white face, with the females retaining the grey face. Males will loose the undertail and underwing striping at the 6 month moult.
White-faced pearl
The males will lose any pearl markings at 6 months old to look like a male white-faced grey. Females will retain the pearl markings.
 White-faced pied
It is impossible to determine the sex of these cockatiels visually.
White-faced pearl pieds are also available, in both dominant and reverse. Males will usually lose the pearl markings.
White-faced cinnamon
The cinnamon markings are in place of the grey. There are also white-faced cinnamon pearl and white-faced cinnamon pied - both dominant and reversed.
Albino
The white-faced equivalent to the lutino cockatiel and are not a true albino but rather a combination of the lutino and white-face. The white-face gene removes all yellow and orange, and the lutino gene removes all grey, resulting in a white cockatiel. These cockatiels are all white with a red eye. It is impossible to sex albinos visually.
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