Your Whit could be a dirty faced white face pied, which means he/she may never get a real white face. Whether he is male or female I can't guess, I am not the best of the group that can tell off pictures. Regardless of male or female, Whit is gorgeous! I LOVE the split crest.

 

Ya, I think a white face pied. Just beautiful!

 

Whit looks like a whiteface split pied. That would explain the random white feathers. To be pied (even lightly), he would have to have at least one white flight feather. Just the white on the back of his neck is not enough to make him a pied.

Sounds like you have a whiteface split pied female. I have a cinnamon light pied male with the same marking on the back of his head.

 

Females don't carry splits. So it would only be a whiteface pied if it were a female...could be spilt if it is male. Pictures of the wing would help here to determine if it is pied.

 

This is my cinnamon female split pied. Maybe you should do your research before you make a blanket statement.

 

Has Whitney had his/her first molt yet? If the answer is yes, then she's a girl because there aren't any solid grey rump feathers, the tail feathers are still barred, and the wing feathers are still spotted. If the answer is no then it's too soon to tell, although the lack of male behavior at this age points toward a female.

The pied situation is hard to judge. Whitney is either a very light pied, or split pied with an unusually large number of tickmarks.

It looks like Whitney is also a "spot gene" bird, a mysterious unidentified condition that we've been trying to figure out for a long time. Our best guess is that it's a messed-up form of pearl. Male spot-gene birds will lose their chest spots when they mature, just as pearl male lose their pearls and normal males lose the juvenile markings on the rump, tail, and primaries. Females keep their chest spots for life.

 

Females don't carry splits. So it would only be a whiteface pied if it were a female...could be spilt if it is male.

Let me clear up a misconception here... females can't carry splits to cinnamon, lutino, or pearl, which are sex-linked recessive mutations. But they can be split to pied or whiteface, which are ordinary recessive mutations.

 

Lol...I realized that today while doing some more research. I was just a bit confused about female splits. Forgive me.

 

this is tweety he is male he is cinnamon split white face, pied. his face is yellow but the back of his head is a really lite yellow and i don't know if you can see or not but on the back of his head he has some white spots close to his neck. he just starting to molt so he still has his spots under his wings. since i have gotten him he has been all boy which is why his name is tweety. if anyone as a different opinion about his mutation please don't hesitate to comment just showing some of my pics i thought it might help.

 

Tweety is a cinnamon pied, he has a pied flight feather meaning hes an actual pied not split, he is gorgeous by the way.

Whitney is gorgeous too I love the white necklace

 

Tweety is a cinnamon pied, he has a white flight feather meaning hes an actual pied not split.

ok still learning i knew he had pied in somewhere so he is split whit face is that right?

 

Tweety has an irregular cheek patch with yellow running through it which does indicate split to wf so yes he is.

 

Thanks for all the answers guys, you've really helped.
I've got an older thread with pics of whitney's wingspots, they were inconclusive back then, so no point in posting them again! Also - have not seen a white flight feather to date, so I'm going with female w/f split pied with an unusually large amount of tick marks, AND a spotty chest (I saw a thread about that anomoly a while ago but didn't join in, incase I was wrong - but im not =] )
She (i'll call her she now) has had a moult as far as I know but with 5 birds together, I can't say for sure - I just assume due to age. She's also knocked a few tail feathers out, so can't go off them at this point in time.

So Whitney is a unique little mix there! Looks like I got more than I bargained for =] Yay

 

It's not easy to understand sex-linked mutations or genetic crossovers but I'm sure it'll sink in eventually. Pied and whiteface are the easiest mutations to understand since they're ordinary recessive genes that work the same way for both males and females.

 

Ok now the confusion has doubled....
Whitney lost most of her tail from when they were in the cage -night frights but now they're in the aviary her tail is growing back...and she has 2 white tail feathers with no obvious barring. They're only about an inch long so far, but what the heck is going on?

I finally get my head around the idea that "she" is a split pied and she throws two clear white tail feathers....that would make her pied right?

Photos pending

 

 

Those have a dark line down the middle I dont think they are pied feathers, I wonder why they arent barred more though?

 

Maybe Whitney is just the mystery of the cockatiel universe

Spotty chest linked to the pearl gene
Unusually high amount of ticking (if split pied)
Dark line down a white tail feather (unusual) with no barring when we though we had a hen on our hands.


At least i KNOW my new baby will be a w/f pied...with a real white face, and most definately pied.

 

Just wait a while and see what the tail feathers look like when they've grown out more. If they come in all white, then maybe she is really a he and is just starting to get his adult plumage. I don't know whether this is related to the spot gene or not, but some of my male babies are very slow to molt out their baby feathers - we're talking 12 to 15 months old before they really look like an adult bird, instead of 6 months like most birds. Henry still had one or two of his baby feathers when he was two years old.

 

It also could be because the tail feathers were knocked out instead of naturally moulted. Cupid has one tail feather that he has knocked out about 3 or 4 times when he was younger( he was a major klutz/daredevil) and it has grown back in with bars each time, each time he knocked it out the feather grew back darker than before but still retained the bars, where all the other tail feathers he lost naturally grew back solid brown like they should. Im interested to see what happens with these tail feathers

 

Im interested to see what happens with these tail feathers

Your not the only one! I do like a bit of a mystery though.

 

Update: the white tail feathers are barred. Just though I'd let you know, they've grown white for an inch, and then the barring starts. They are still quite short though

 

I guess it's official then: she's a girl.