Why DNA Test?
Determining the gender of an Umbrella Cockatoo is easy after its several years old because the female Umbrella cockatoos have brown or reddish-brown eyes, and the males have much deeper brown coloring or black colored eyes. However in young birds, it is often difficult to determine the gender. In this case, DNA testing is required. There is a relatively new technique that can determine the gender of a young bird using DNA from a feather!

How does it work?
DNA stands for Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid. It's the genetic code of the bird and is the same in every cell in the whole bird. The DNA is different in males and females. DNA testing uses enzymes specific for DNA that break the DNA strands at certain points. DNA breaks at different points in males than in females and produces DNA fragements of different sizes that are gender specific. The fragmented DNA is amplified by PCR (which just makes more of the same DNA - necessary so you can see the DNA) and then it is run through an agarose gel (electrophoresis) which separates the DNA by size. The different fragments are seen as bands.

Here is a gel with DNA samples from six birds. As you can see, the females have two bands and the males have one. Standard molecular weight markers are run in the very left hand lane to be sure of a good separation. In this test it is easy to determine the males from the females. Unless you mix up the samples or have gross contamination, determination of the gender is basically guaranteed.

Photo used with permission from Zoogen Incorporated

Where do I send samples?
DNA samples can be sent to any one of a few companies (see my links page). I found the least expensive to be a company in Australia. Some places need a blood sample that has to be taken from a clipped nail. However, be careful with this method since a bird can bleed to death if the nail is not stopped from bleeding. Also there is a risk of infection. I find it easier on the bird to simply pull a few flight feathers but some companies don't test feathers. For more information visit the sites listed on my links page.