How can you tell if a parakeets is male or female?

Firstly, it need to be determined what is meant by "parakeet".

The term "parakeet" is a generalised term to cover numerous species of smaller, long-tailed parrots. Birds classified under the name "parakeet" are actually unrelated to each other, except by means of all being in the parrot family.

'Parakeet' also tends to be a commonly mistaken name for budgerigars, the smallest of the parrot species. Birds classified under the term parakeet include:

• budgies
• cockatiels
• rosellas
• lorikeets
• Bourke parrots

If the question refers to budgies: Parakeets have a part called a cere right on top of the beak. Females have a brown (in breeding season), buff, or pink colored cere and the males have a blue cere. The colour difference do not appear until the birds are about a year old.

If the question refers to cockatiels: The only way of visually sexing cockatiels is after their first moult as all young cockatiels look like females. Male cockatiels are characterised by their brighter cheek patches, usually orange in appearance. Females also have cheek patches but they are paler. There is an urban myth that males have striped/barred or spotted tails and females do not. The opposing myth states that females have the barred tail. Neither is fact.

Bourke parrots, along with most common rosellas and lorikeets, cannot be told apart easily, as there is little or no colour differentiation.

Some of these smaller parrots which are "lumped in" with the term "parakeet" have the main distinction of the female having a paler chest.