Java Color & Sex?

[Tweet]

So I finally have my new Javas and they are beautiful! But, now I’m trying to verify what I actually have as far as color and sex. Any input would be helpful.

Butter Bean – Light colored Java in foreground. Opal Isabel? Male/Female? It's a young bird and the color on the head is very faint, at one point I thought it was a white or cream bird, but in proper light I can see color on the head (faint silver) and breast (light creamy tan) Do young Javas darken as they age and go through molts? I also thought she was a female, but someone told me it looks like a male.

Bruiser – Big silver male in background. At least I think he's a male!

Sweet Pea - My normal colored hen (with ticking on head) pictured below, in foreground next to new silver male. Sweet Pea is in LOVE with my new silver male, they’ve paired up and occasionally chase Butter Bean around halfheartedly.

Now to put a real spin on things…. Sweet Pea looks like a male to me in these pictures! I swear she's not! Her mate died a few months ago. He sang to beat the band and they laid several clutches of eggs. (Infertile unfortunately) No, I didn’t actually see the eggs come out, LOL, but she was the one in the nest box and sat tight. So, if she’s really a male who doesn’t sing, and her mate was a female who DID sing, and she's paired up with what I think is a new big silver male, well, I’ve just about given up on sexing these adorable birds!!!

[Sheather]

When I bought my first Java pair, I picked the big tall gray male with the huge red beak and swollen eye ring, and a dainty white female with a little beak and almost no eye ring at all. The next morning, the little white hen is singing up a storm, and I'm all "darn it!", until a few days later he goes up to the "other male" and starts hopping, then mounts "him."

The gray ended up being the hen and the white a male. To me, they always looked like it should have been reversed. I gave up visual sexing at that point!

[w.l.]

Did the silver cooperate in being mounted?
Inexperienced and overly enthusiasts young males sometimes do court and try to mount other males, but those do not welcome this in the female way.

[Sheather]

Yes, and they laid a ton of eggs, though never hatched any chicks. I now suspect that they were siblings.

[Tweet]

Any guesses at to the color of the light Java?

[lovezebs]

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Oh my....they are gorgeous!

Is this what my babies will look like when they grow up and get their adult feathers.....

I am about as far as you can get from being a Java expert, but there is some information on line about both sexing them, and figuring out the colour mutations, which I've been reading (trying to figure out what my kids are going to grow up into).

[Tweet]

Yes, and they laid a ton of eggs, though never hatched any chicks. I now suspect that they were siblings.

That's the same problem I think I had with my old pair. They were purchased as a gift for me from the same pet store at the same time. Tons of eggs over the years but but they were always clear.

[Tweet]

Tweet

Oh my....they are gorgeous!

Is this what my babies will look like when they grow up and get their adult feathers.....

I am about as far as you can get from being a Java expert, but there is some information on line about both sexing them, and figuring out the colour mutations, which I've been reading (trying to figure out what my kids are going to grow up into).

Thank you, I'm so happy to have them! I can't wait to see pictures of your babies! I study nonstop, and seem to become more and more confused about sexing these birds. Maybe between the two of us we can start to figure out if we even have Javas at all!

[lovezebs]

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Good grief, you mean we might have been sold a cat in a ba.... I mean a finch in a bag, lol.

There are pictures of my kids on my thread, but they still look just like what they are, unmoulted, scraggly, gawky, younglings

I think I read somewhere, that it takes them something like 6 months to actually come into their adault colours (but I could be wrong, seeing as I've been doing so much reading about both Javas and Diamond Firetails lately, that I'm going a little bit ).

[GouldianGuy]

doesn't sexing javas have something to do with eye position with respect to the beak?

[Tweet]

doesn't sexing javas have something to do with eye position with respect to the beak?

Yes, eye position in correlation to line of beak, beak shape from top, beak shape from side, beak color top, beak color from bottom, eye ring color, and even and old wives tale using needle and thread swinging above the bird! You’d think it would be easy wouldn’t you? But every time I look at the birds I see something different, depending on the tilt of the head etc.

I guess I’ll have to dig out my sewing kit!

[Sheather]

For what it's worth, my new pair, Jesse (left) and jack (right_, do seem to follow the conventions. Jack, an avid singer, has a larger bill, brighter eye ring, and an eye set lower relative to the bill relative to his mate.



I was told these are year-old birds from last winter, and were paired as juveniles from unrelated sets of parents, so I've set them up with a nest box and Jack is tentatively checking it out.

[Shannylee]

Tweet, I am certainly no Java sexing expert but it looks to me like Sweet Pea is female. The other 2 look like boys to me. I'm going by their eye placement but sexing Javas can be like flipping a coin. See how Sweet Pea's eyes are above the mouth-line but the silver's eyes are level (with the beak opening)? Looks like the opal/isabel has the same eye placement as the silver. ??

My male has a bulbous beak and brighter red eye rings than his bride so they are easier to tell apart but he sits on eggs just as often as she does, if not more.

Beautiful birds!

[Tweet]

Sheather
What BEAUTIFUL Javas!!! I may have been hasty when I said I didn't want pieds! What a darling couple. I might be driving to Indiana next year to look at babies!

I'm still trying to figure out the Opal Isabel's sex. The silver, Bruiser, is obviously a male. Sweet Pea has commandeered him and MADE him love her! He sang a one-note-song to her yesterday. I'm assuming Bruiser and Butter Bean weren't eating as well as Sweet Pea has been, because her beak and eye rings are very dark compared to the new birds.

I watch endlessly now that Sweet Pea and Bruiser are together. Bruiser mostly just looks blandly at the younger Opal Isabel, he really couldn't care. But Sweet Pea is adamant that the bird stay away from her new mate! I wonder if that could mean that Butter Bean is a hen. Regardless, I'm putting the new cage together tomorrow and putting Butter Bean in.

I’d like to wait awhile, see if the bird sings, etc., but you'll never guess... I found some more Javas in a pet store just 45 minutes away! I called today and they have 4 six month old normal color birds. The girl I talked to said they look like little penguins! I am going to have to figure out whether to get a boy or a girl, even if I could tell on a 6 month old! Jeesh! I think I’m going to have to leave it to the universe to decide which bird I should bring home.

[Tweet]

Shannylee


I see exactly what you’re saying about eye position - Sweet Pea’s is definitely higher. I was just so thrown off by how dark her beak looks compared to theirs, but like I said above, I think it could be attributed to good nutrition. Since Butter Bean is younger (don’t know exact age because the breeder had no idea) beak color could still be developing, don’t you think?

Butter Bean’s eye appears different every time I look. For example, go back and look at the third picture down. In that one the eye looks low like a hen’s. This is driving me to the wine glass. (I’ll be honest though, it wasn’t much of a journey!) ;)