Ameraucana color question

[RockyToggRanch]

Thanks for the link. I saw the picture of the silver male. That looks a lot like mine. He's just started to fill in with more white on his back.

 

[sugarbush]

Quote:
FYI: Not all EEs are mutts. Infact most hatchery stock are not mutts. You posted a link to ameraucana.org in your thread.....if you read there you will see that ameraucana has to breed true 50% of the time. Guess what that makes the other 50% of off spring that do not conform to the standard? The different color eggs also do not come from cross breeding. The egg color gene cannot be mixed brown to blue and make blue green. If the dominant gene is green the offsprings egg will be green, if it is blue the offsprings egg will be blue.....It is like eye color in humans. Blue parent and a Brown eye parent does not make a blue/green eye color in their kids....they will be blue or brown depending on the dominant gene.

The Aracauna, Ameraucana, and EEs come from two breeds of chicken. The Collonca and the Quetro both from Chili. They layed colored eggs that range from pink to dark brown. Some were tailed, some rumpless, some bearded, some clean faced, some tufted. They came to the states and all of the offspring of these chickens were called Aracauna after the native tribe that owned them......Then the standard for Aracauna was developed and breeders selected to meet the standard. Then all that was left over started being called Ameraucana until that breed saw recognition and again a bunch of birds where left out...these are now known as EEs. They are all decendant of the same two breeds. The reason hatcheries still call them Aracauna is because they were calling them what they were 50 years before APA stepped in and screwed it all up.

 

[klf73]

actually what the hatcheries have ARE usually mutts, or at least very many of them, that is why they lay green, green is the result of a brown layer in the mix.
I have some project birds....to introduce the new color/pattern a brown layer was introduced. The pullets laid blue. The offspring are laying......GREEN. That is because one color is over the other. The offspring are not producing a brown or blue........nothing like human eye color gentics.
My project birds will breed true, soon, but I won't call them ameraucana(until I get better egg color), I will still refer to them as projects for years. The breeding true thing, there needs to be a goal intended....not just willy nilly.
With your attitude about the whole thing I would guess you have EE's.
A lot of time and effort are put into breeding both Ameraucana and Araucana, if you walk in the shoes of one of those breeders you would appreciate it just as much as they do and also be mad at the hatcheries for claiming what they just don't have......JMHO

I feel like I have danced this dance before?

 

[Guitartists]

Indeed many hatchery 'Ameraucana' are mixed or poorly bred... (brown eggs, single combs, lack of muffs, etc) though some seem to be merely mixed color Ameraucanas.... muffed and bearded, slate legs, a nice colored egg, just a hodge podge of colors that are unshowable in the color categories laid out.

It's like my Aunt who had a 'Chihuahua' that she was going to breed..... even though he looked like a Min Pin and clearly was a mixed breed

But if she had bred him I'm sure she could have passed the puppies off as Chihuahuas to the unsuspecting

I'm so happy he ended up rehomed and hopefully fixed!

 

[sugarbush]

Quote:
Actually I have bearded, tailed Araucanas

According to APA an "true" Araucana lays blue eggs. The blue gene is autosomal dominant. A chick hatched from a blue egg will lay blue eggs. So how exactly is it that a chicken that lays blue eggs was cross bred to lay a range off colored eggs? It is not possible. The range of color came first and then the blue egg Araucana came second by selectively breeding.

The araucana and ameraucana were developed from EEs, not the other way around.

 

[Birch Run Farm]

There is a very interesting discussion on the ACA forum discussing the back ground of blue egg poultry, mostly about possible araucana descendents. It is very interesting and there are a lot of photos to see. Once you see them you might get the idea where the various traits we seek, including 'leaking' are coming from.

Many of my araucana males show a curious orange shoulder and columbian pattern on the hackles. I now see why.

I dare suggest the APA standard does not reflect what looks like true araucana color, at least in the males. Araucana and Ameraucana are composite breeds of Collonca and the Quetro and their ancestors. EE's carry some of the genes as well. But our accepted show colors are not what the original breeds carried. I realize many breeders are able to acheive their color goal and develop further colors.

I say enjoy your birds, they are all beautiful.

I have a chick that is quite interesting and I suspect it will surprise me with a lot of changes when it finally grows its adult plumage.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Sugarbush--how about citing some references and research on the genes involved in creating the various coloured eggs? Gee, do you even know how many genes are involved? (either for human eye colour or for chicken eggs, since you want to equate them to each other). Do you understand the process by which eggs become brown or blue or green?

Yes, Collonca & Quetro were involved into the creation of the Araucana and Ameraucana breeds, which by the way were developed during the same time frame--breeders working with the original imports and their offspring had different ideas of the characteristics they wanted to see developed in the breed--not one after the other. You can read more about the history of these breeds and their development at http://ameraucana.org/history.html Another very good pair of articles on both araucanas and ameraucanas is at http://www.araucana.net/images/ACA_Images/Araucana_Alan_Stanford_Article.pdf

Harmony, an araucana who is mentioned in the article now lives at my house--she looks ismilar to Yetti, photographed in the article, although Harmony is a silver duckwing.


Even the hatcheries admit that they breed, not based upon the characteristics and traits of the birds, but strictly for egg colour, and usually for a wide variety of colours (or maybe that is their excuse for not having true-breeding blue egg layers?) and therefore multiple mixed egg colour genes. Hatchery EEs come in all sorts of mixed gene plumage colours and patterns that are unplanned. Some have muffs and beards; others do not. Size of the birds is inconsistent; type (shape) of EEs is inconsistent; wing carriage is inconsistent; even comb type is inconsistent.

WHERE is there anything STANDARD in an EE?

Yes--this song and dance is familiar

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
Actually I have bearded, tailed Araucanas

According to APA an "true" Araucana lays blue eggs. The blue gene is autosomal dominant. A chick hatched from a blue egg will lay blue eggs. So how exactly is it that a chicken that lays blue eggs was cross bred to lay a range off colored eggs? It is not possible. The range of color came first and then the blue egg Araucana came second by selectively breeding.

The araucana and ameraucana were developed from EEs, not the other way around.

A chick hatched from a blue egg will not necessarily lay a blue egg. A blue egg laying chicken mated to a brown egg laying chicken will produce green egg laying offspring because they will carry the blue egg gene and they will also carry the brown egg gene. They are two seperate genes and both can be carried at the same time.

 

[Solsken Farm]

Quote:
FYI: Not all EEs are mutts. Infact most hatchery stock are not mutts. You posted a link to ameraucana.org in your thread.....if you read there you will see that ameraucana has to breed true 50% of the time. Guess what that makes the other 50% of off spring that do not conform to the standard? The different color eggs also do not come from cross breeding. The egg color gene cannot be mixed brown to blue and make blue green. If the dominant gene is green the offsprings egg will be green, if it is blue the offsprings egg will be blue.....It is like eye color in humans. Blue parent and a Brown eye parent does not make a blue/green eye color in their kids....they will be blue or brown depending on the dominant gene.

The Aracauna, Ameraucana, and EEs come from two breeds of chicken. The Collonca and the Quetro both from Chili. They layed colored eggs that range from pink to dark brown. Some were tailed, some rumpless, some bearded, some clean faced, some tufted. They came to the states and all of the offspring of these chickens were called Aracauna after the native tribe that owned them......Then the standard for Aracauna was developed and breeders selected to meet the standard. Then all that was left over started being called Ameraucana until that breed saw recognition and again a bunch of birds where left out...these are now known as EEs. They are all decendant of the same two breeds. The reason hatcheries still call them Aracauna is because they were calling them what they were 50 years before APA stepped in and screwed it all up.

Ummmmm a little more sugar in your tone would be helpful there, sugarbush. Not sure what to say here, other than, I am glad my Ameraucana breed true more than 50% of the time. Or the Ameraucana eggs that I have purchased. Breeding true at least 50% is what the standard calls for, but that does not mean that Ameraucana only breed true 50% of the time.

I do not know what to tell you about the egg color. It is NOT like human eye color.

What kind of birds do you have?

 

[Birch Run Farm]

pips&peeps :

Quote:
Actually I have bearded, tailed Araucanas

According to APA an "true" Araucana lays blue eggs. The blue gene is autosomal dominant. A chick hatched from a blue egg will lay blue eggs. So how exactly is it that a chicken that lays blue eggs was cross bred to lay a range off colored eggs? It is not possible. The range of color came first and then the blue egg Araucana came second by selectively breeding.

The araucana and ameraucana were developed from EEs, not the other way around.

A chick hatched from a blue egg will not necessarily lay a blue egg. A blue egg laying chicken mated to a brown egg laying chicken will produce green egg laying offspring because they will carry the blue egg gene and they will also carry the brown egg gene. They are two seperate genes and both can be carried at the same time.​

Correct, I have an araucana hen that layes a yellowish green egg. She came from a show breeder too.