Can you breed a Ameraucana into a Araucana or a Araucana into a Ameraucana?

[Anonymous__]

The breed Araucana and Ameraucana get mixed up and confused often, and seem kind of similar to each other but have distinct difference. Do you think it is possible to breed a Ameraucana into a Araucana or vice versa?

 

[Chikyboy]

The breed Araucana and Ameraucana get mixed up and confused often, and seem kind of similar to each other but have distinct difference. Do you think it is possible to breed a Ameraucana into a Araucana or vice versa?

What do you mean? You can breed two different types of chickens together, even if they are completely different.

 

[NatJ]

The chickens won't object. The chicks they produce should be as healthy as any other chickens. The daughters should lay blue eggs, since that's what both parent breeds do.

If you want a long-term breeding project, you could eventually produce chickens that have all the right traits for one breed, even if they originally had ancestors of both breeds. (I don't know how many generations it would take to select ones that only have the traits of one breed and not the other.)

A chicken "is" whatever breed it has the right genes for. There is no pedigree registration system for chickens (they are not like dogs or horses in that respect.)

But if you sell someone a chicken and tell them it is a certain breed, they will be unhappy if it looks wrong or produces offspring that are wrong-- so keep that in mind if you cross breeds and then sell chicks. (Just tell the buyers what the chick really is: a cross of __ and ___.)

Edit to add: if you mean you want to start with one breed, and select chicks that look just like the other breed, then no you cannot manage that with Araucana and Ameraucana. Each breed needs some genes that are not in the other breed. Araucana has ear tufts and rumpless but must not have muff/beard. Ameracuana has muff/beard but must not have ear tufts or rumplessness. (American standards, that is. "Araucanas" have different standards in some other countries.)

 

[nuthatched]

The differences between the breeds can be great or little, depending on the country's standards. I'd say 'maybe', with qualifiers.

 

[DarJones]

Ameraucanas and Easter Eggers are both descended from Araucanas. The reason Ameraucana's were bred in the first place is because of the negative consequences of rumpless and tufted ears present in Araucanas. Similarly, Easter Eggers are descended from Araucanas. The primary difference is that Ameraucanas have been selected to breed true for blue eggs where Easter Eggers may produce blue, green, brown, pinkish, or white eggs. Instead of asking if you can breed one from the other, maybe focus instead on the traits each brings to the table and decide what is important to you. You can achieve almost anything in breeding chickens so long as the required genetics are present in the genome you are working with.

 

[Anonymous__]

Since Ameraucanas are a descendent of Araucanas, do you think it's possible to bring out the ear tuff trait of an Araucana by breeding Ameraucanas?

 

[NatJ]

Since Ameraucanas are a descendent of Araucanas, do you think it's possible to bring out the ear tuff trait of an Araucana by breeding Ameraucanas?

You mean find Ameraucanas with ear tufts?
No, that would not be possible.

The ear tuft is caused by one particular gene. You will not find that gene in Ameraucanas at all.

A chicken with one copy of the gene will have ear tufts (or one tuft, or lopsided tufts, or something of the sort. But it will generally be visible.)
A chick with two copies of the gene will die before it hatches from the egg.

So no, the gene cannot hide in an Ameraucana and show up later in the offspring.
And the Ameraucana was deliberately bred to NOT have that gene, because of the fact that a chick with two copies of the gene will die. The people developing Ameraucanas wanted a breed where ALL chicks have a good chance of living to hatch.

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Since Ameraucanas are a descendent of Araucanas, do you think it's possible to bring out the ear tuff trait of an Araucana by breeding Ameraucanas?

Ameraucanas aren’t a descendant of present day Araucanas of the APAs definition. Both modern day Araucanas and Ameraucanas were bred from Araucanas, however the different breeders had different ideas of what an Araucana should be, and some desired to avoid the lethal tufted gene, which is lethal when homozygous, however when Araucanas were accepted into the APA it only accepted the tufted varieties, leaving the breeders of the muffed variety behind, which then later got accepted as what is now the Ameraucana. It’s not a matter of one being bred from the other, but them being bred simotaniously from the same type of birds in different directions.

 

[DarJones]

It gets down to how you look at things. Blue egg layers from South America in the 1930's were called Araucanas, however, they had a wide range of traits. Modern Araucanas should properly be considered descendants of the original Araucanas with certain traits emphasized and others eliminated. They are no longer the same as the birds from the 1930's. The traits emphasized include ear tufts and rumpless which both have serious negatives for survival and egg production. When I crossed Silver Laced Wyandotte X Blue Egg Brown Leghorns, I had one single chick show up that was rumpless and laid white eggs. I have no idea how the genetics of rumpless works, but since it was definitely not what I wanted, I culled that hen. I have not seen rumpless since.

Ameraucanas are a result of deliberate efforts to cross Araucanas with other breeds that did not carry rumpless or ear tufts. Selection pressure was extreme to the point that rumpless and ear tufts do not exist in modern Ameraucanas. They retain certain traits considered desirable including muffs, beards, pea comb, and relatively calm and personable behavior. They are only considered Ameraucanas if they breed true for blue eggs.

Easter eggers are basically Ameraucanas with a lot more variation and without having been selected to breed true for blue eggs.