sexing the budgie

Question
i have one bird and when we brought it, its above its beak was blue for a boy but then it went purpleish brownish for a girl then she scraped her colour off and it went blue but has a white ring around the cere. is my budgie a girl or boy? i want to breed her but i dont know what sex she is. will i still be able to breed her?

Answer
Hi, Nick,

Your bird didn't "scrape off" her cere color.  I suspect your bird was still young when you bought it and its cere was still changing.  A budgie needs to go through at least 1 molt (at about 6 months of age) in order for adult cere color to emerge.  In my experiences with budgies/keets, a blue cere framed in white is a female bird.  There is no reason you shouldn't be able to breed this bird as long as the bird is mature enough when you do (about 1 year of age).

Chrys