- Thread starter
- #21
JesWith3
Songster
- Jul 25, 2022
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I agree 1050%Here's some insight that you probably won't hear from most.
I first saw blue egg layers in the 70s. That was before I ever heard of the name Ameraucana or Easter Egger. In that day they were called Araucanas.
They weren't exactly pure for any of those breeds as we know them today. Breeders were trying to standardizes them as the Araucana and did in the mid 70s. Other breeders took them in a different direction creating the American Araucana shortened to Ameraucana and joining the APA almost 10 years later.
Many thought the gene that caused the no tail was linked to the lethal gene in those earliest birds. Some knew and others later figured out it was the ear tufts that was linked. But anyways people started breeding away from one or the other or both sets of genes.
Araucanas became less popular and Ameraucana popularity grew. But all along the way the hatcheries kept breeding for the blue egg genes with less regard to the SOP the APA set.
Those birds were now becoming advertised as the "Easter egg layers" For a long long time you could buy these non Ameraucana birds from hatcheries that laid blue eggs. Idk if there's any hatcheries that still have those lines or if they've all mixed egg genes now.
Easter eggers, Americanas, etc are all just different labels that were eventually attached by hatcheries to their birds.
It doesn't suprise me that so many are confused by what exactly they have since its changed so often.
I did find the information you supply here in my own researchathon (I'm a self-proclaimed infomaniac). You'd think I'd know something by now, but no. The more I learn about blue egg layers, the less I feel I know and the more misunderstandings I adopt ((sigh)) It's fun though lol And waiting to see what egg color you'll get is the most exciting part, so, I'm here for it
