Easter Eggers or Ameraucana?

[junebuggena]

Brown layer to blue layer does not always mean green layer. The brown coating genes are complicated, and don't always inherit as you may expect them to.

 

[donrae]

It always has for me. What other color do you get?

 

[junebuggena]

I bred a pure for blue Easter Egger to Barred Rocks. I got some green layers and some pale blue layers from the cross.

 

[lilmillefleur]

My rule of thumb for deciding if a chicken is Ameraucana or Easter Egger:

'If you don't know what it is, it's an Easter Egger'

Most people with true ameraucanas know what they have.

 

[FlyWheel]

All true Ameraucana should be pure for the blue eggshell gene. And yes, any offspring from a true Ameraucana (male or female) will inherit at least one blue eggshell gene.

Quote: Kewel, thanks.

 

[lomine]

My rule of thumb for deciding if a chicken is Ameraucana or Easter Egger:

'If you don't know what it is, it's an Easter Egger'

Most people with true ameraucanas know what they have.

I agree that most people with Ameraucanas know what they have, however there are a lot of people who have EEs that "know" they have Ameraucanas. Many hatcheries and feed stores sell their EEs as Ameraucana (or Americana or some other off spelling). If you buy a chick labelled as Ameraucana you think you have an Ameraucana. Most don't know they are EEs until someone who knows the difference tells them. Even at the beginning of this thread there is a poster who says she knows for sure her bids are Ameraucanas but has been informed they are in fact EEs.

 

[Eliaria]

I believe if you cross a dark brown to blue layer, you have a good chance of getting an olive layer (or lighter green if it's a lighter brown), but you still have a certain percent that will come out brown (for example, you may get 19 various shades of olive but 1 will be brown, if not more). Genetics are tricky. Currently (to my knowledge) Meyers hatchery is the only big hatchery that have true Ameraucana's and only in blue. The pullets are a little over $20 a pop.

My biggest pet peeve with all these hatcheries is that they advertise their EE's as Ameraucanas (or Americanas) and then either proceed to say they all lay blue eggs or "you get a variety of colors!" Then when you get your eggs all of a sudden you have browns and greens when you should be getting something else. Some EE's are just Am's that don't fall in the SOP, 90% or more are just mutts. It is 100% false advertisement and should be stopped, and instead they should be saying they're all EE's that have a chance of laying any variety of color. I love EE's myself because you never know what you're going to get in terms of color on the birds and the eggs. They lay better as well which is great for the average backyard flock raiser. Out of my three EE's, two lay a nice teal color while the other lays a soft sage colored egg. They're all almost as big as my white leghorn's eggs and she lays some big eggs. This false idea that you're getting an Ameraucana that lays blue eggs (or if you believe the hatcheries, greens and pinks) makes people think they have true Ameraucanas thus they sell their mixes as pure, and the confusion continues. It's crazy how far it's spread. I usually do a rant on my FB about it every spring as I always have friends getting chickens, doing research into the breeds they want and they want those blue eggs... but never get them.

 

[lomine]

I believe if you cross a dark brown to blue layer, you have a good chance of getting an olive layer (or lighter green if it's a lighter brown), but you still have a certain percent that will come out brown (for example, you may get 19 various shades of olive but 1 will be brown, if not more). Genetics are tricky. Currently (to my knowledge) Meyers hatchery is the only big hatchery that have true Ameraucana's and only in blue. The pullets are a little over $20 a pop.

My biggest pet peeve with all these hatcheries is that they advertise their EE's as Ameraucanas (or Americanas) and then either proceed to say they all lay blue eggs or "you get a variety of colors!" Then when you get your eggs all of a sudden you have browns and greens when you should be getting something else. Some EE's are just Am's that don't fall in the SOP, 90% or more are just mutts. It is 100% false advertisement and should be stopped, and instead they should be saying they're all EE's that have a chance of laying any variety of color. I love EE's myself because you never know what you're going to get in terms of color on the birds and the eggs. They lay better as well which is great for the average backyard flock raiser. Out of my three EE's, two lay a nice teal color while the other lays a soft sage colored egg. They're all almost as big as my white leghorn's eggs and she lays some big eggs. This false idea that you're getting an Ameraucana that lays blue eggs (or if you believe the hatcheries, greens and pinks) makes people think they have true Ameraucanas thus they sell their mixes as pure, and the confusion continues. It's crazy how far it's spread. I usually do a rant on my FB about it every spring as I always have friends getting chickens, doing research into the breeds they want and they want those blue eggs... but never get them.

MyPetChicken also sells Blue Ameraucana, though I think they might be BBS because the picture on their site is a Splash hen.

I agree that hatcheries are perpetuating confusion. But to be fair, all these birds were called Araucanas before they were anything else. These birds have a complex past that's for sure. The term that annoys me the most is Americana. You know that the hatcheries that use that term know that don't have true AMs and are specifically trying to trick people. At least some are honest about the possibility of a bird laying a color other than blue even if they call their birds Ams.

If you breed a rooster with genes for brown eggs to a hen that lays blue eggs and get offspring that lay brown eggs it means the hen doesn't have two blue egg genes. Blue is dominant over white so a hen only needs one blue egg gene to lay a blue egg. However, she might not pass a copy of that gene to her offspring.

 

[Eliaria]

MyPetChicken also sells Blue Ameraucana, though I think they might be BBS because the picture on their site is a Splash hen.

I agree that hatcheries are perpetuating confusion. But to be fair, all these birds were called Araucanas before they were anything else. These birds have a complex past that's for sure. The term that annoys me the most is Americana. You know that the hatcheries that use that term know that don't have true AMs and are specifically trying to trick people. At least some are honest about the possibility of a bird laying a color other than blue even if they call their birds Ams.

If you breed a rooster with genes for brown eggs to a hen that lays blue eggs and get offspring that lay brown eggs it means the hen doesn't have two blue egg genes. Blue is dominant over white so a hen only needs one blue egg gene to lay a blue egg. However, she might not pass a copy of that gene to her offspring.

I think Meyers and MPC get their stock from the same source. You will always get BBS when breeding blues so I expect this. And that's true, the Americana bothers me as well. Maybe they think they'll get hard core patriots to buy the birds that way. I never hold bit hatcheries to high standards since they're just mass producing birds but I think they shouldn't lie about such a sought after breed. I always see posts of people asking if their bird is an EE or Ameraucana, or talking as if their mix is a pure Ameraucana and when you tell them they've been duped or that you're not going to buy an Ameraucana out of a bin... boy they get mad at you.

 

[kmcg727]

ok, I understand the Amera"A"cauna, and its to my understanding the Amer"I"cauna is an easter eggers, Am I correct? I'm confused as where I ordered my pullets from, the list states Amer"I"caunas and Easter eggers available. should it not states Amer"A"caunan's ( if avail) and either Amer'I"caunas OR Easter Eggers?

In other words, are there Amer"A"cuna's, Amer"I"caunas and Easter Eggers?
or are there Amer"A"cauncas , and Amer"I"caunas known as EE?

Thanks.