[ninfatiel]

I have a grey cockatiel named Yellowhead who is really a racist, He hates lutino babies. He himself is grey split to pied,cinnamon,pearl and lutino and he has a permanent girlfriend (lutino), I say permanent since he is very devoted to her and absolutely wont breed with anyone else.So these two do get lutino chicks sometimes.. When he was younger he wasnt feeding the yellow ones at all,so when they fledged, I had to assist feed or they would starve; once there was one lutino baby left in the nest (his siblings fledged) daddy attempted to hill him,poor baby was bleeding all over but luckily I was able to save that one..Now he has a clutch again with 2 lutino babies in it, I found one stone cold in the corner,then another-with bite marks.. Otherwise he is a wonderful parent (to all other chicks,he doesnt mind pieds or cinnamons,just lutino is his problem) My husband sometimes jokes that Yellowhead feels that the girfriend cheated on him and yellow ones are not his,since he is grey himself. Does anyone else has this experience with racist cockatiels?

 

[Haimovfids]

I do not have experience with this, nor have I ever heard of this happening. It's pretty ironic that he's fine with a lutino mate.

Cockatiels can't perceive racism. I don't think you should breed him. He does not seem like a good, stable father. Remove the nest box and use hormone control.

 

[Amatiq]

I agree that you should not breed him. He's perceiving the lutino chicks as intruders, or possibly transferring his feelings about his mate to them and getting annoyed when they don't respond.

 

[EllenD]

To seriously answer your question, I have owned/bred cockatiels and many other birds for over 20 years, and I was born into a household where my mother and grandmother bred both cockatiels and budgies for decades. I have never personally seen a cockatiel or any other species of bird not feed a baby of theirs because of the color or mutation of that baby. I'm not sure if this is a well-known or documented phenomenon or not, but it is not one I have ever heard of. I would rather think it's a coincidence where these Lutino babies he has either ignored and stopped feeding or attacked actually had something wrong with them, especially since this bird's mate is Lutino. If he was adverse to Lutino colored cockatiels I would highly doubt his life-like, bonded mate would be Lutino. And since it is well-known that parents will stop feeding, push away, or harm/kill any of their babies that are sick, injured, too small/underdeveloped, or that have any congenital anomalies, I'm going to say that it's just a weird coincidence. If his mate was not a Lutino I might be swayed to believe differently, but that's not the case.

Just as a side note, you may not want to call your bird "a racist", but rather just say that your bird seems to not like other cockatiels that are Lutino colored. While I understand what you're trying to say and you are using the word in a joking way, racism is certainly not a joking matter in any way, and as Haimovfids already stated above and as I'm sure you already know, birds have no concept of "racism"; if there is anything to this phenomenon it is simply the bird seeing a certain color and being adverse to it psychologically or biologically, certainly not on an emotional level where the bird feels hate towards cockatiels of a certain color based solely on that color and the fact that they believe that birds of their color are superior to birds of that color. That is the definition of "racism", and obviously cockatiels do not understand this concept.

I am just trying to point out that your choice of words, whether meant as a joke or not, may be offensive to some people.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[tielfan]

I wonder if the red eyes have anything to do with it? The eyes of lutino babies do look different, so maybe he thinks these chicks have a birth defect and he doesn't want to take care of them because of it.

 

[Fran.bath89]

He might have attacked the late leaving chick to make it leave the nest. From what I've read that can be quite common. But perhaps there is something wrong with the lutino chicks that's only being passed on to them? Have they all had a clean bill of health from a vet? Animals know when something's wrong better than us.

 

[ninfatiel]

His chicks turn out to be fine. I am always trying to breed him and some other couple on the same time and then foster the lutinos to them. He does feed the lutino fledgings now,but I always have to watch out with him..Anyway, I think I will have to retire him soon,cause his girfriend is 10 y.o. already, she would lay 2 eggs and one of them may be infertile, so I do more fostering with them then real reproduction. Thank you,everyone !