Читать книгу Birds For Dummies - Gina Spadafori - Страница 67

Do you really need to know whether any bird is a boy or a girl? In general, both males and females make equally fine pets, so determining gender is not a necessity — unless, of course, you plan to breed your bird. Give your pet a nice non-gender-specific name, like Avery or Flynn, and go on with your life. Some folks, though, can’t leave it at that. They have to know.

Enter DNA testing, where a blood sample is sent off to a special lab for gender determination. The cost: Depending on the number of birds you’re testing and whether you’re sending in blood or feather samples, prices start at $17 and go up from there. Most services offer discounts for multiple birds. DNA testing may be a pricey investment for a $60 cockatiel, or a relative drop in the bucket when the bird is a $10,000 hyacinth macaw.

Simple? Sure, but thanks to new color mutations among cockatiels, it can be much more difficult to differentiate the sexes. In varieties such as the cinnamon, the white-faced, and the albino, telling male from female can be difficult, if not impossible.

The outcome of a sex determination test is usually documented in writing. If you’re considering buying a bird represented as either male or female (in species where the difference isn’t visible to the eye), ask to see the documentation. Don’t just take the seller’s word for it. Birds who have been surgically sexed typically have a tattoo under their wing webs; males on the right, females on the left. Chromosomal or DNA sexing results also are recorded on a certificate that correlates to the identification number of the bird’s leg band, if she has one, or microchip number. (You can find more information on identification in Chapter 5.)

Again, buyer beware: If there’s no ID to match with the sexing result, you can’t be sure you have the same bird, can you?

Labs offering DNA tests are not necessarily overseen by any regulatory authorities and quality-control measures may or may not be in place. Brian occasionally sees DNA-sexed “male” birds who are egg-bound or have ovarian or uterine disease.