: A peculiar problem lies behind the breathtaking colours of Psittacine birds, more commonly known as the parrot family (including parakeets and macaws) — identifying their gender based on morphology is not easy because most of them are monomorphic: both males and females are similar in size and appearance.
Now, the Avian and Exotic Pet Unit of the Department of Wildlife Sciences at the Madras Veterinary College (MVC) offers a non-invasive DNA sexing technique by testing a feather for major Psittacine bird species, including budgerigars, lutino and African love birds, cockatiels, cockatoos, conures and macaws. “We are the first government institution in the country to achieve the breakthrough, even though some private laboratories are offering the facility,” said Dr. A. Prathipa, Assistant Professor in the department.
Financial assistance for the initiative came from a corpus fund set up by the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS). It is difficult to identify the sex of Psittacine birds, especially young birds, which results in pet lovers bringing home a pair of birds of the same sex.
“Sexing, even of young birds, is important in avian breeding and evolutionary studies. Sexing is currently performed by expensive and time-consuming procedures such as vent sexing, laparoscopy, steroid sexing and karyotyping (a chromosomal evaluation). These procedures may cause pain and are a threat to the [well-being of the] birds,” said Dr. Parthipa, who successfully completed the project.
The MVC follows the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method to identify the gender of birds. “Just bring the feather of the chick or adult bird and we can determine its gender in a couple of days. We can also determine the gender of other birds like pigeons,” she said.
The PCR method substantially reduces stress and bleeding in birds.
Sexing is possible in budgerigars from the male’s bright blue cere (the fleshy section above the beak); the female’s cere is a pinkish brown. Similarly, the grey cockatiel has distinguishable features that enable sexing visually, but it is difficult in most of the Psittacine species in India.
“Feather sexing results are as accurate as DNA sexing using blood samples, captive breeding programmes, and the management and conservation of bird species, will be more successful with timely identification of the gender of the birds,” Dr. Parthipa said.
