Araucana thread anyone?

[Rumbull]

So I just noticed - Is that a Cuckoo cockerel in the photo? An Araucana cockerel??

Sort of... His father is my blue araucana and his mother is half Barred Rock and half LegHorn. He will be the beginning of my own cuckoo project. He is rumpless and has one tuft. I will breed him to a blue or black araucana pullet this spring. I am expecting this combination to add the barring without adding alot of brown to the eggs. (He has a younger brother that is looking to have better barring so we will see...)​

 

[Beth G.]

Wow I was going to say the samething!! Your avatar is really nice picture!!

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[syble]

resurrected from page 4! yeiks!So i posted back a week or 2 ago that my aracauna pullet just started to lay, so at this point she been laying for less then a month. i assume she average size for an araucana, which equals small compared to other birds, bit better then half the size of a commercial leghorn hen.

At any rate, i remember the size eggs i hatched her from, not huge... she is laying whoppers often (like i might expect from a seasoned commercial layer on her way out lol), I haven't cracked one yet to see if its a double yolker (I assumed it was though it doesn't have that classic look). she lays a small egg about half the time.



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Those are in order of lay, and shes 6 days out of 7 layer so far.



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that's her regular egg with her bigger version and a turkey egg for comparison (sorry its all i had, that or quail lol)

I'll be cracking them Saturday for breakfast so can post if they are double yolkers or not. but does anyone have thoughts? why she would lay so strangely early on, such size disparity?

 

[Shaffer]

Does anyone know a person that goes by the name of Jinx, she had some of the best black LF Araucanas around for at least a decade? She also had some great LF whites. She also had some nice looking Rapanui blood.

 

[smoothmule]

Lanae,
That sounds so cool. I have one empty cage at the moment. I moved the trio of Serama into the garage for the winter. They don't tolerate the cold so well. I'm planning to put a couple or 3 black hens in that pen by themselves a while. I may be getting a black cockerel or 2 and I want to have my best hens waiting and not fertile by any other roosters. I figure to keep 2 black cockerels together and hope they get along so I can give them 4 hens total until they are more mature.

I have a little work to do first though. I plan to use the cages all winter unless it gets too bitter cold so I have a little winterizing to do and some lights to hang over roosts. It was 29 degrees here at 7 am but we're having a warm up. I hope it isn't as bitter cold as last winter and for so long without a warm up.

If it really gets too cold for the wire pens, I'm planning to put all the hens in one coop and all the roosters in one coop............expect Rudy and Degas who can get along with any of the other roosters except each other. Both of those boys are excellent at free ranging so they can take turns being out.

 

[Rumbull]

This will be my first winter. Does anyone change up their diet for the cold? Do they need more calories and less protien? I would assume they don't need all the calcium if the laying slows way down. Do araucanas lay through the winter? Who uses heated waterers and which ones work well?

 

[Illia]

I don't change diets around here much. The girls always lay for me in the winter though - As long as they aren't broody or molting.


Syble - Looks like a couple double yolkers.

My Blue Cuckoo hen's first egg was a double yolker. The poor girl, it was the size of a Marans egg.


Well, looks like I might have to cull a couple chicks.

Double tufted ones too. My latest/youngest two chicks haven't grown ANY since they were 2 weeks old, most likely because their diet at the time was layer feed (didn't have any better at the time) but since their diet improved, they haven't. Their feathers are more developed, but they're still the size of the continuing batches of chicks that hit 2-3 weeks old, then the chicks outgrow them. Pretty sure after a while the poor fellas will hit serious health issues. . . .

My oldest cockerel is coming along superbly though, and my tailed (officially a pullet) is one gorgeous silver duckwing with a perfectly dark salmon, very showy breast. . . . Too bad she's tailed! What's neat is how long and big her tail is. She looks like a Cubalaya or a Phoenix or something.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Lanae, they are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! They arrived home a few days ago and there simply hasn't been a spare moment to contact you and say thanks - sorry for the delay. I love the size of those two nice big girls!!! I am really so excited to have LF Blues finally. The rooster is, uhm.... interesting. He is so nice and handsome and then I look at that tuft hanging off his neck and, wow, how strange is that?!?!! I'm not complaining! I am so happy to have these guys here!!! They are in isolation at the moment, and I feel sorry for them, as I always do for birds caged up..... but they are happy and healthy and, ( little aside), my Montero doesn't even stink like chicken!. Yeah!
Brian said you were wonderful - I made him give me a blow -by-blow account of his meeting with you, since I was so very disappointed that I couldn't meet you myself. Thanks for all that you did to get these Araucana to us. Good luck with your duckwings!

 

[Illia]

You got her triple tufted roo??

 

[cackleberrycoop]

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I watch them very closely through the winter and make adjustments if i see that they are not doing as well. Last winter was LONG and they did begin to loose condition towards the end, so I upped their protein intake and bought some alfalfa bales for them. It seemed to help. The only difference that I do make every winter is I give them a second feeding of scratch just before they go to bed so that they roost with crops full of fast, heat producing energy.

Did anyone else read the Backyard Poultry magazine's article on winterizing chickens? I need to sit down and read it more thoroughly, but on first read, I'm not sure that I like their ideas. Just wondering if there is anyone out there who has wintered with the open air method like they suggest?