Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Olivia?

From animal-world.com:

The sex of most conures is difficult to determine by physical characteristics alone even if you are an experienced breeder...[It] must be determined by either a surgical probe...[or] by DNA testing, usually a blood sample or a few plucked feathers sent to be diagnosed in a lab.

Since I now live alone and have no roommates to liven up the house while I'm away, I have decided to get Ollie a mate. Green cheeks don't reach sexual maturity until 3 years of age so I won't have to worry about having little Ollies for a while, and if/when they do lay eggs, taking them away typically upsets them for only a few hours (fortunately, birds have very short memories). When I bought Oliver, the guy at the pet-store said he was "almost certain" he was a boy - but just to make sure, I plucked a few feathers (a process which Ollie did not like at all) and sent them off to Avian Biotech International to be DNA tested.

Guess what - he's a she.

Yup - Oliver will now have to be Olivia. Fortunately, I always refer to him (I mean her) as 'Ollie', so I won't have to change that practice. Poor Ollie - I hope she doesn't grow up all butch because I raised her as a boy ;-)

1 Comments:

Blogger Jane said...

Just change the name to "Oliveher"

6:29 PM  

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