Araucana crosses

While I wait to have Araucana hens for my rooster, I've kept my rooster, Rudy, happy and occupied with my barnyard hens. I did have some Ameraucana and EE hens but sold them so that when I actually have some true Araucana hens, they can enjoy the big coop with my brown egg layers and I can easily tell their eggs from the brown egg layers (a few Maran hens). I did hatch out a few chicks from those hens and they are such neat crosses. I probably will not be keeping them but they can hang around until I have purebred hens that are laying. I want to see what they look like when they mature.

I was pleased to find that over 90% have been rumpless. My rooster is rumpless but clean faced so these chicks will not have tufts. The Ameraucana chicks do have muffs but no beards. So, these little guys have pea combs and they will lay blue/green/olive eggs and they are rumpless. I don't plan to hatch any of their eggs but they sure do make pretty chickens and the egg colors will be nice and since there isn't any reason to care about the color or standard, anything goes and there are some cool colors in those breeds to cross. I may have to hatch a few every so often just for people who want something different as laying hens and since Araucana's are such nice, heavy birds, the extra cocks will be very nice for eating.

I know Araucana are too rare to just be used for crossbreeding but in my case, no purebred hens yet (just chicks that I haven't been able to sex yet). Has anyone else crossed true Araucana's to other breeds? What breeds do you cross to and what were the chicks like? I have 1 that hatched yesterday (the last Ameraucana cross chick) and 2 from the Maran eggs are hatching as I write this. I'll be even more excited to have purebred chicks but in the meantime, I am really enjoying my crossbred chicks and learning more about the Araucana and breeding it.

No crossbreds yet, but my Olive Eggers and truly "green" Easter Eggers will be Araucana based. I've seen a Penedesenca x Araucana, neat looking bird, as well as an EE x Araucana (loved the tufts AND muffs/beard) but otherwise I myself have another 2 months to go before I experience my own Araucana crosses.

Otherwise, I just have a good sized flock of true Araucanas.

I've got quite a few, they were test hatch eggs and are araucana X ameraucana. Here's the ones I could get pics of. Gonna sell 'em off, cute as buttons!

I have bantam cochin X araucana hens. They have little heads with pea combs, tufts on top, and bright pink ears. The legs are feathered and they have enormous fluffy butts and thighs. They look wonderfully funny from the back as they run. They are lovely friendly girls who lay blue and olive eggs. Mine are from a black cochin and a lavender araucana, and are a shiny black with a green sheen in the sunlight.

I had some araucana cross's. Sold them but the pullets were rumpless. The roo was tailed. They were EE and Araucana. My duckwing roo over your typical BBR wannabe EE hens. I liked them so much that I started putting more eggs in the incubator this fall for the next 3 weeks. My EE hens lay really nice blue eggs so the pullets will also. I will try to get some pics uploaded. But basically they looked like everyone elses. Front half EE, back half Araucana. LOL


Lanae

My daughter just bought me a partridge silkie roo who is beautiful and I am kicking around putting a wheaten based tufted hen in with him just to see what I would get.


Lanae

Ann,
Oh goodness those are cute Mine look like that too. I could see having a flock of those just for egg layers they're so pretty. I'm going to keep the ones I hatch out to see how they lay and what they're like when they're grown. I'm thinking that I'll probably keep them and add them to the Maran flock for table eggs. That coop is larger and I can put a couple of runs up for the Araucana's when I have some pullets old enough to lay.

I bet the Cochin crosses are adorable too. I have one bantam Araucana hen and found a neat little rooster for her but he's not here yet. She's in her own pen now but she's been in with one of my Serama roosters and talk about some cute bantams. The feathering is super soft, dense and plush with a beautiful sheen. I bet Silkie crosses would be sweet as pie.

The Pendesca cross would be pretty interesting, definitely olive eggers aren't they?

Cathy I have a bantam Araucana breeding pair you are welcome to. I don't want bantams. She is a black, he is a blue breasted red. He is georgous and randy. I finally had to cage him and his girl. He was driving my LF Araucana roo Mark crazy, cause he was mounting all his girls and Mark spent all day every day pulling him off. It was pretty funny actually. Talk about little man attitude.

Lanae

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Yup. I'd imagine they'd lay a slightly lighter shade of Olive compared to Marans crosses, and depending on the Araucana's egg, they can range from a beautiful stone color like Ann's to a normal greenish Olive.

Lanae,
I just have the one little clean faced, tailed blue bantam Araucana hen. She's adorable and has had some sweet, sweet Serama cross chicks. I don't have him here yet but I bought a blue duckwing bantam rooster for her. He's rumpless and tufted so I may get some neat little chicks, we'll see, but I prefer the LF.
My Maran crosses produced several barred roosters that were clean faced and rumpless and were so cute. I think I have one now but they're too young for me to tell yet. My Marans are the cuckoo variety so I think they are sex linked. I have a blue with red leakage, a red with blue leakage and a black that appear to all be pullets, they're old enough now to sex by feathering. Right now I have an Ameraucana/Araucana cross chick with amazing muffs and rumpless that is beginning to feather out black. Then there are 2 that are just a couple days old that are Maran crosses and I think there is a roo and a pullet from the down color (sex linked) and one single bantam chick that is the last Serama/Araucana cross I'm doing for now. It looks pale blue/grey but feathering out to look almost like it could be splash but I don't know if that is possible, the hen is blue, the rooster is mottled duckwing and who knows what else, lol

Here is the chick with the amazing muffs. They look to me like the placement is more like tufts but they are muffs...I think