Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[Muggsmagee]

I have a lovely Wheaten Am roo that I've been wanting to show this year...one problem. He STILL has not recovered his beautiful black beard from winter boredom feather picking from the girls!

One show in September, one in October.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Quote:
The brown feathers are likely red leakage. I would not use him as a breeder.
Did you get buffs as well, or is that a wheaten in the pic behind a silver pullet?

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Here's one of our up-and-coming Wheaten cockerels giving me the teenage boy stink eye.

 

[Muggsmagee]

Quote:
This is a good question...if it was my breeding program, I would probably pick the boy with the larger size, as Silver's tend to be on the smaller side. But if the better feathered roo has an all around better color and type, you can breed for size later.

Which reminds me...I have a Silver Am hen from GORGEOUS parent stock, that has feathered in quite strangely in her breast feathers. The feathers look almost spangled. Very weird.

 

[Ivywoods]

How long does it take for wheaten ameraucana roosters to darken up their beards and muffs? My wheatens were March hatch, and all three roosters have fairly white beards and muffs.

 

[2 britts]

Just wanted to post a couple of pictures of my Black LF Ameraucana rooster. He was hatched in March and is almost 23 wks old. The fellow I bought the eggs from said his lines were from Paul Smith and William Morrow. My concern is that he has some gold in his hackles. Is this allowable by standards or not. I culled 2 of his brothers last week-end which didn't have the gold in the hackles. Did I make the right decision or not? I don't really plan on showing him,just want to have a good foundation for breeding in the future. Also, he was the alpha and best looking of the three. Any comments will be appreciated

 

[speckledhen]

That is his base color bleeding through. Honestly, he should not be used for breeding. I had the same issue with the male I had and let him go. He will pass that on to his sons, maybe not all, but certainly some of them, I know from experience.

This is why. This rooster from excellent breeder stock with some bleed thru of his gold base color in the first pic produced the son in the second pic below, a very unusable male:

Granted, it was the only one with so much wild color, but you don't want that. Many of his sons were just beautiful with no bleed thru, but some of the blues and the blacks did have it, albeit in a minor way, so why set yourself up to have to cull so many because of it, right?

 

[2 britts]

Quote:
Thanks for the info. I guess I didn't make the right decision! I'm new with the Ameraucans and have a lot to learn. At least I have BYC as a learning block.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Quote:
Thanks for the info. I guess I didn't make the right decision! I'm new with the Ameraucans and have a lot to learn. At least I have BYC as a learning block.

Wow Cynthia- what a nice looking bird otherwise. What a shame. I had a bantam blue that was the same way but he had so much silver he looked downright birchen

Ivywoods I would give him at least 9 months. If he's good otherwise I would still keep him.

 

[speckledhen]

There's a definite learning curve to this, isn't there? The problem with bleed thru is that it sometimes takes a good while to show up.