HELP ME PLEASE!!!!

You probably have easter eggers, not pure ameraucanas. Easter eggers (EE's) are a green egg laying hybrid and can be and size shape or color as long as it carries the blue-egg gene.

1. Barred rock X EE

2. Austrolorp X EE

3. Pure Austrolorp

4.RIR or NH X EE (considered an EE, will lay green eggs)

5. Pure EE

6.RIR or NH X EE (also is considered an EE... carries the blue egg gene)

7.Pure EE

Explanation of the blue egg gene:

 

Naturally the base color of all chicken egg shells is white. The bloom is the last layer of the egg that is sprayed on in the vagina of the bird just before it's laid. The pigment or lack thereof determines the color of the finished egg.

Blue egg layers lay such eggs because long ago their ancestors mated with a blue egg laying species of pheasant. This cross has been replicated in recent years using several species of pheasant. The blue egg gene became dominant in these birds and thier offspring. The normally white based shells were now blue. These birds became two distinct feral breeds: the Collonca (they were rumpless meaning they lack a uropygium, also known as the coccyx or tailbone) and the Quetros (tufted birds, with fleshy appendages on either sides of thier faces with feathers attached to them). The two breeds were combined to make the first Araucanas. Unfortunatly the tuftedness and rumplessness carried with them many lethal genes causing a percentage of chicks to die before hatching.

In more recent years, English poultry breeders decided to create thier own version of the Araucana; one that did not carry those lethal genes. Tailed, bearded and crested, they called the new birds Ameraucanas. Americans took the idea and bred out the crest leaving the Ameraucana we know in the U.S today.

With the rise in poultry demand in recent years, many hatcheries discovered that be breeding Ameraucanas and Araucanas to brown egg laying breeds they could achieve a new green egg laying hen. They called them, inaccuratly, Araucanas, Ameraucanas or various misspellings of such. In truth, they are known as Easter Eggers are are not recognized by the American Standard of Perfection. The brown pigmented bloom sprayed onto the blue shells resulted in green eggs. When dark brown egg layers such as Marans and Welsummers are crossed to blue egg layers the resultant offspring, known as Olive Eggers, lay dark green eggs.
 

 

I hope this helps!

x2 my thoughts exactly. 

all the chicks with beards have either an EE mom and/or dad.

1, 4, and 6 are roosters
Edited by farmerChef - 6/20/12 at 10:01pm

The tufts in #1 tell you that it is part EE.

I'd go with this also, except I don't think #4 will ever give you green eggs. His daugher might, but not him personally. #1 is also a cockeral, I think the rest look like pullets.

Those are muffs, not tufts. Araucanas have tuffs, they have little fleshy bumps on the side of their face that normal sized feathers grow out of. Go check out feathersite.com for some pictures, I am on my phone, so I can't upload pictures.