Lisa Shea Forums Parakeets Health and Medical Issues Need help not sure

Hi, it's been over 5mon. since I have had my mittu, I am not sure of whether Mittu is a he or she. At first I thought a male, but now I am not sure. Secondly, I read somewhere and my Mittu's got growths around one right side of it's beak. and couple weeks ago Mittu was opening and closing its mouth alot too I thought it cuz of yawning, but now I am not sure, he was also shedding like crazy, but now that's stopped. So am I am not sure if he or she is sick and needs a vet?!?!
and my Third concern is, I am planning to leave on a vacation for three or four month, not now but in May, before that time I wanted to buy another keet, so Mittu doesn't get lonely since no one except for my husband will be here (who will just change water, feed and not play). So I wanted the other keet to be an opposite sex of this one, cuz in future I wanna breed them, but I am not in a rush now, for time being I want the other one to be use to the house and hand train, and just want them to get use to each other, do you think it's too early? and the look of my keet do you think it is male or female? and would I be doing the right thing to put an opposite sex together when I am not around, I know it's not like they will start mating right away... and plus I am not going to put a nesting box in the cage till I come back, so you don't think they will do anything right please also clearify by the picture if you think Mittu's a male or female?
Thanks for reading and responding in advance...

I am adding mittu's most recent pic please tell me what you think now???

So beautiful! Mittu has pale coloring, so it is going to be hard to tell if it is a girl or a boy until the bird is in peak breeding condition. At that time, the cere will turn deep blue for male and brown for female.

It is important for you to get a companion bird so that he/she will not be too lonely while you are gone for so long.

I think you should take her/him to a vet soon so that they can look at her beak and answer your questions. You can also have a DNA test done at that time to see for sure if it is a girl or a boy. It costs about $20-25 for the DNA testing.

wow cool advise^^^ thanks a bunch.
and also I have tried looking for an avian vet but no luck in my area with so many animal clinics, no one sees birds.

neways, I was reading other forms I did try what it suggested, like put a clean white paper under his cage to check if there are any mites. And few did turn up, I have to spray him tomorrow first thing, let's see what happens....

But is it possible the beak this is happening cuz of Mites as someone suggested in another forum???

Heres a site that can help you find an avian vet: http://www.birdsnways.com/birds/vets.htm

I really suggest to go see a vet and get some medication. It looks pretty bad.

First, you are going to have hard time telling with your keet because it is a recessive diluted pied, yes eventhouh it has stripes on the head it still is. It may even be spangled, but I cant see the wings so Ido not know for sure. With recessives the males and females do not follow the same rules. For example I had a recessive pied male with a pink cere and a female with a white with blue like yours above. I would guess you have a female because the white around the cere is usually a dead giveaway. However, truely there are only 2 definte ways to tell. Get a Vet to actully run a gender test, or wait to see if she lays an egg! Of course if she were a regular standard green or blue keet noraml rules would apply, bule cere male, pink female...

About a growth.... I can not tell if the bare spot to the left looks like just dry skin that lost the feathers or if it is growth. I can tell you the cere and beak are fine, the beak is layered like our fingernails so it is normal to peel sometimes when overly dry. A great way to prevent this or at least help the cere and beak is get a warm spray bottle like they use for womens hair and add about 2 tsp of 100% aloe vera and then mist your keets head getting it on the cere and beak. This helps not only the beak but helps with the skin drying and chaffing. Once a month routine is good for this!. My breeder of my old English recommned this and it worked wonders! and is 100% natrual and safe!

I would say only get her a friend you you are gone 4 or more hours a day.

Hope some of this helped!

Thanks "sillybirds" found a vet, nice site, great info.

and "keetiebeaks" seems like you know what you are talking about, wish I had has as much info, just learned what I learned from this site and few others, but this beats everyone. I will take couple more pics and post them please do look at and tell me what you think might be the sex be?? Mittu is a Rare Parakeet, well that's what the store people said, I am not sure of how old Mittu is, so I don't know if she will be ready to lay eggs anytime soon. I thought she seemed pretty old, but when I got her and was training her, she didn't even know how to fly the first time I let her out, she was all over the place and kept missing her landing, now she's just perfect, and that's after 5 months with me.

As for gender testing I found out it's like $160, is that normal? cuz I don't know much about vet, my last pet was few tropical fishes, and didn't need a vet for them, so don't know much.

Someone also suggested in another thread, to place a mirror in the cage, and if she's a female, she might start laying eggs cuz she is affectionate towards the one in the mirror... how much of that is true???

can you guess the sex now???

you keet isn't recessive, SHE's diluted dominant pied opaline and maybe clearflight. Wow..gorgeous!

definate female though...she is not in breeding mode yet. she will be in a few mos. though. you'll know when she is when her cere turns a crusty brown. she looks to be about 6.5-8 mos. old.

If you're going to be gone from her for 3-4 mos. then you need to have someone in the house that WILL play with her, such as a companion like you said. If you go to pick one out, look for a DEEP blue cere. Like my lemon's cere.

If you are planning on breeding them in the future, read my breeding post ("All about breeding parakeets")

LLPB 0=]

Cool thanks LLPB, and your Lemon is really cute rest of them are cute also, but I love the color of Lemon.

And what is "diluted dominant pied opaline" and Clearflight and recessive? Keetiebeaks used the same terms, what does that mean?