Chocolate/Mauve Ameraucana color project~ BeakHouse

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ChooksChick

ChooksChick

BeakHouse's Mad Chicken Scientist
15 Years
Aug 17, 2008
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Larry, KS
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My Coop
Hiya!

I've been working on some projects (imagine that!!) and wanted to share a couple of pictures of some of them- forgive the quality, as I've only got a phone to snap shots with...

Here are a couple of my LF Chocolate Ameraucana project:







And here's a Mauve pullet, which is a bird with both sex-linked Chocolate and the Blue dilution.




The Mauve is like a laced chocolate-milk color, rather than the deep, rich brown of the chocolate. It's lovely!

I'll be offering eggs from a mixed run of these for just a bit, while I wait for them to be clean now that I'm separating them into a few different breeding groups.

I'm still working on a double-choc boy, so there won't be true pures for a bit longer, and I'm working on getting the conformation better, but it's wonderful to see them as they are, just the same.
 
I think these chocolates are beautiful! How is the egg color coming along. I might have to get some of these! I lost my 2 blue ameraucana hens and only have 3 blue males left now. They were my sweetest girls! The males are sweet too!
 
Renee,

How is your egg color? Mine is lacking because I used a choc orp cockerel over black ameraucana hens. I have found in my projects that if you use the ameraucana cockerel the egg color turns out better.

I went the other way around for my bantams and their egg color is much better.



 
Hey Jean! I've been wanting to see how yours are doing.

Here's an unretouched pic from my phone of the last couple of days' eggs...some of them have more green than I'd like (and some of them a lot more poop than I'd like!
sickbyc.gif
) but over all, they've retained a good amount of blue, so eliminating the brown overlay will be more important for me than adding more blue. If I get a smaller cockerel, I can send him to you. Would you mind working with a fellow who also had Blue? You could move past that pretty quickly if you didn't want to mess with Mauve.




pips&peeps said:
Renee,

How is your egg color? Mine is lacking because I used a choc orp cockerel over black ameraucana hens. I have found in my projects that if you use the ameraucana cockerel the egg color turns out better.

I went the other way around for my bantams and their egg color is much better.



Click to expand...
 
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Wait- I just realized these are from your LF- so you could just use any old guy I've got in my Chocolate group to amp up your egg color.
 
Wonderful egg color, you lucked out!!!! Most of mine are similar to the picture of the egg in the third photo of my LF birds. I have two that are laying a lighter color. (These are my first generation birds.)

I only kept one cockerel that is split. He had the best type and nicest pea comb, I haven't looked at him closely lately, but I think he doesn't have any wattles. I will put him in with the hens later this year and yes I will get mauve because I have splash birds in there. I don't want to deal with the mauve, but I imagine that they will be easy to spot in the chicks.

Raising the bantams was very hard on me last year. I culled all the black chicks at hatch last year as I was using a split over the black hens to get the chocolate pullets. I couldn't sell the bantams in my area and had to do the unthinkable to the little ones.
hit.gif


I've already got the third generation on the ground. I will take my best split cockerel to put back over black hens again. I think this will yield the fast results as far as type, size and egg color. The fourth generation will be 93.75% ameraucana.

Yes, I am willing to work with you and anyone that is serious about them. I have sold a few, but most people want a chocolate male right away to go with them and I don't see that as the best way to improve the birds. I really want them to be REAL ameraucanas.
 
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Oh, that's a very HARD step to take. I'm not able to do that yet, even though I know it's the best way to go...I just have a terrible time with that and it's taken me years to be pragmatic enough to take them to be processed after a nice life eating bugs and scritching...but I know I'll get there, too.

I'm working with split boys and taking them back to 100% hens, too, and continuing from there- it's going to take hard work to go back to correct presentation, but I'm selling a few sets of eggs because I have to feed them...and that's where we stand! If it only cost chicken-feed to buy chicken-feed...


pips&peeps said:
Wonderful egg color, you lucked out!!!! Most of mine are similar to the picture of the egg in the third photo of my LF birds. I have two that are laying a lighter color. (These are my first generation birds.)

I only kept one cockerel that is split. He had the best type and nicest pea comb, I haven't looked at him closely lately, but I think he doesn't have any wattles. I will put him in with the hens later this year and yes I will get mauve because I have splash birds in there. I don't want to deal with the mauve, but I imagine that they will be easy to spot in the chicks.

Raising the bantams was very hard on me last year. I culled all the black chicks at hatch last year as I was using a split over the black hens to get the chocolate pullets. I couldn't sell the bantams in my area and had to do the unthinkable to the little ones.
hit.gif


I've already got the third generation on the ground. I will take my best split cockerel to put back over black hens again. I think this will yield the fast results as far as type, size and egg color. The fourth generation will be 93.75% ameraucana.

Yes, I am willing to work with you and anyone that is serious about them. I have sold a few, but most people want a chocolate male right away to go with them and I don't see that as the best way to improve the birds. I really want them to be REAL ameraucanas.
Click to expand...
 

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