Bay Area BYCers!

[jeremy]

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Yes, she is. But she's getting free room and board for the next few weeks so I figured it was a fair trade off.

 

[jeremy]

Chooklet, that is a very handsome Wheaten Ameraucana cockerel that you're rehoming, if I didn't already have 2 Wheaten boys growing out I would take him from you in a second.

Or if you had a pullet friend that could go to a new home with him... ?

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I'm in the Tri-Cties area, in Newark. Anyone else here in the Tri-Cities? (Fremont, Newark, Union City).

 

[Anna_B_Happy]

I am in Fremont!

 

[jeremy]

Dawn, here's my opinion on how your birds have matured at this point. Remember, all of our birds from John are still very young and if you were breeding these guys you would want to grow them out to at least 20 weeks old and then begin the process of elimination of those who aren't suited to be breeders.

I'll start with Butterscotch.

The Ameraucana standard calls for a lighter overall body appearance for Wheaten birds as compared to other Wheaten standards written by the APA, say for Marans. I've never really understood why and those who I've asked have simply told me "that's the way the standard was written, breed to it." It doesn't make sense to me why Ameraucanas would have a different color standard but it is what it is so whaddya do? Anyways Butterscotch's overall color is nice. She has the darker wheat color head and hackles. Her upper body, shoulders and back into her saddle area should be a creamy wheaten color, which it is and her lower body should be an even paler creamy wheaten color than that to almost white. She seems to fit this aspect of the standard. The thing that stands out to me the most is the black ticking that she has in her hackles (neck) and around the saddle area of her back. Most likely the black on her back should go away as she continues to mature and feather in, however it's likely that the black ticking in her hackle feathers might not. This is something that you want to breed against and is undesirable in a hen. If she were used for breeding she has the potential to throw males that have black striping in their hackle feathers which is something that you definitely do not want. Most W/BW/SW males have this fault and it's something breeders are actively working against. Claude has some striping towards the end of his hackles and it's something I hate about him however his other strengths outweighed that fault for me and was the main reason I kept him for breeding. Butterscotch looks to have nice deep blue-slate legs, you don't want pale or white legs in Ameraucanas no matter what color variety. Her comb also appears nice and small. On pullets if you look closely at their comb they should have one single row of small bumps that resemble peas in a pod... hence the name pea comb.

If you can get a picture of her standing naturally from the side I could assess her wing carriage and her tail angle better. Her tail should be at a nice 45 degree angle off her back.

This is a picture of one of my hens from Jean Ribbeck that I consider to have very nice wing carriage and a good tail angle.

Out of your two pullets, I like Butterscotch better.

On to Rye.

Rye's color is too dark overall. That said though her back and hackles are much cleaner than Butterscotch's. You want to see a more dramatic color change in the different areas of the bird's bodies. Her hackles should be the darkest color, fading into a lighter upper body and then a paler to almost white lower end. However, I would still use her for breeding, mostly because her hackles are so much cleaner than Butterscotch's and she has more potential to produce correctly colored male offspring. If you were doing single mating she would be a hen that could be used to produce males that were visually better than their female counterparts. Her leg color does appear to be good as well. One thing you want to look for in both pullets as the mature is the amount of black they have in their tail feathers and their primary and secondary wing feathers. Ideally, these feathers would be solid black, or blue for BW birds.

Like this.

The hen pictured above is not mine but she has superb tail coloration. Her overall body color is a bit dark but the amount of blue color she's expressing in her tail is more than enough to keep her for breeding. Like the black striping in the male's hackles is an issue most breeders are working on, lack of color in the hen's tails and wing feathers is the opposite sexes weakness. My hen I posted a picture of above doesn't have the best tail color but she has some which is more than can be said about a lot of Ameraucana hens. Or for whatever reason hens will have great colored tails when you're looking at their feathers from below but from above the feathers are colored entirely wheaten. It's an issue that we all face when breeding this variety.

I'll try and comment on Norbert later, I just got off work and I'm going to get home now. Let me know if you have any questions and BTW these are just my opinions- you could ask another breeder about the same birds and you might get completely different remarks. Every breeder sees a bird differently and every breeder is working on something different in their respective line. John's birds are very nice though and their overall quality is good. I've seen W/BW Ameraucanas from others who I would not use for breeding at all that others are doing just that with. Though, no one's line is perfect and they will all throw birds with faults and unwanted traits, it's just something you have to cull against and work to eliminate in future generations.

Talk soon!

 

[Chooklet]

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He is handsome, isn't he? And very well behaved. I do have a wheaten pullen, but she is one of my absolute favorites! She is staying put. Maybe visitation rights?

 

[cherylcohen]

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He is handsome, isn't he? And very well behaved. I do have a wheaten pullen, but she is one of my absolute favorites! She is staying put. Maybe visitation rights?

hey I hatched those babies, if anyone gets visitation rights its me!

 

[MarinMama]

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I have a bantam ee that has similar coloring to this bird but is even flashier...beautiful blue tail feathers. He is so handsome I don't want to just eat him.

 

[MarinMama]

I really want to purchase the cream legbars but cannot have Roos in my area...thinking of doing a partnership on them with someone local...anyone interested in them?

 

[wolftracks]

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I miss Union City right now. Lived there for a long time.

Had a bad day and posted about it. I mean bad!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=6799687#p6799687