- Apr 19, 2013
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I just brought home 4 chickens on Saturday! I am so excited. One girl is an Ameraucana, her name is Tillie. She is my favorite so far, she is extremely personable and sweet! I'm in love with her. She's 8 months old so she should be laying soon!
She does have the cheek puffs, just pretty small ones.
I'm sorry this group seems to be so harsh in their critiques of new comers to the Ameraucana breed. I wish everyone tried to be a little kinder.What makes her not? I'm not trying to be snarky, I am genuinely curious.I am new to chickens! The person I got her from was told she was an Ameraucana. I looked up some of the standards and pictures of Ameraucanas, and Tillie- my girl- seems to fit a lot. She does have cheek puffs/beard, just smaller. She has the right type of comb and the slate feet and legs. From what I can tell her color is acceptable, but out of proportion red/brown to black.
Now, I'm much more familiar with dogs (dog groomer). In the dog world, just because a dog doesn't fit the standard to a T, it doesn't mean the dog isn't purebred. It means it wouldn't win a conformation show. For instance, I have encountered everything from deep red-orange, 40lb Golden Retrievers with pointy muzzles to 100lb cream-white Goldens with broad muzzles and chests. They're all the same breed, and neither of those examples fits the standard, but they are still Goldens. Is the same sort of thing not true for chickens? Are there not purebred but just poorly bred examples of different chicken breeds? Again, genuinely curious! I love to learn.
Thank you! The girl behind her is a Golden Laced Wyandotte, named Sylvia.
There are many people and hatcheries who should know better (and probably do!) passing off mixed breeds (Easter Eggers) as purebred Ameraucanas. For the serious fanciers of the breed, it is really frustrating. And it is really frustrating to explain it to newcomers. I've spent a lot of time this going through the American Poultry Association's breed standard book to find the right references just to answer your query. (It would have been a lot quicker if the APA could put the correct page number when they refer you to another breed standard! Grrrrr!)
As a dog groomer, you must be aware of all the "-doodle" "and "-poo" mutts being passed of as a breed of dog to unsuspecting people who pay a lot of money for those mutts. I think the anger and frustration many Ameraucana fanciers feel is akin to what the serious dog breeders feel when a fly-by-night "designer-dog" breeder sets up shop selling mutts to the AKC breeder's traditional clients.
A blue egg, a pea comb, and a beard and muff do not make an Ameraucana.
Here is a link to the breed club's page of photos of the varieties:
http://ameraucana.org/scrapbook.html
You can see, your bird does not have an acceptable color, and that right there makes her not an Ameraucana. My guess is that the closest acceptable color she has is Brown Red. To find what that color is supposed to look like, the Standards of Perfection (SOP) of the American Poultry Association (the chicken equivalent to the AKC) says to look at the color description of Brown Black of Modern Games. (Neck lemon; front of neck black; back black; tail black; wings black; upper breast black with narrow lacing of lemon; body and stern black.) Your bird, beautiful as she is, does not match any acceptable color for Ameraucanas.
Go through the FAQ page of the Ameraucana Breeder's Blub, the parent club for the breed, link below.
From Ameraucana.org (the web site for the Ameraucana Breeders Club, Ameraucana's breed club):
What are Easter Egg chickens?
The Ameraucana Breeders Club defines an Easter Egg chicken or Easter Egger as any chicke that possesses the blue egg gene, but doesn’t fully meet any breed descriptions as defined in the APA and/or ABA standards. Further, even if a bird meets an Ameraucana standard breed description, but doesn’t meet a variety description or breed true at least 50% of the time it is considered an Easter Egg chicken. By definition an Easter Egger is not a breed of chicken.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about this breed and many people are selling any blue-egg laying chicken as Ameraucanas. A blue-egg layinig gene does not make an Ameraucana.
"Purebred" chickens are different from dogs in that there is no registry. Having bred Thoroughbred racehorses who trace their ancestry to the 1700s, I find it the term "purebred" in chickens a bit of a stretch, especially when referring to a breed recognized in my lifetime. Chickens don't have a breed registry. Purebred is considered to be a chicken that breeds true and meets the breed standard.
I am not familiar with the genetics of what goes into the color of your bird, but it isn't an acceptable color. She is a typical hatchery Easter Egger that hatcheries are selling as Ameraucanas, Araucanas or Americauns with an "i."
Does that explain it a little more?
