FAQ

Cockatiel Colour Mutations

In the wild, cockatiels are naturally grey with white wing patches and yellow and orange on their heads. Colour mutations are desirable for show and some owners, however a number of these are sex-linked and/or recessive. For example, the lutino mutation is such that the individual does not produce melatonin, resulting in a phenotype of no grey coloration upon the body. The genotype is XL Y (female cockatiel with lutino gene linked to the male chromosome X) or XL XL (male cockatiel with lutino linked to both male chromosomes). Male cockatiels with a genotype of XL X carry the lutino gene, but do not express it and will appear normal grey. (Note that in birds, XY denotes female, while XX is male; some ornithologists use different letters such as ZW for female and ZZ for male.)

Mutations can appear both individually or in a wide variety of combinations such as lutino pearl, whiteface pied, lutino pied and whiteface lutino (which is often called albino, but is not a true form of albinism). Still fairly hard to find is the rather new 'olive' mutation. An olive cockatiel does not actually have green pigment to its plumage, but rather an overlapping pattern of yellow and grey that create the illusion of a greenish cast.

Many mutations retain the black eyes, beak, nails and grey feet of the normal grey cockatiels, however the lutino, cinnamon and fallow mutations have pink to deep plum red eyes, pink toenails and feet, and a horn coloured beak. While most mutations persist into adulthood for all cockatiels, certain mutations like pearl are molted out in the males and retained in the adult females. Sex-linked mutations such as lutino and cinnamon have a higher ratio of female offspring to male due to the mode of inheritance from parents to offspring. Some, very rare mutations manage to change the eye colour of the bird to ruby red, however this is very rare and very few professionals can boast accomplishing this.

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