Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[fowlman01]

pips&peeps :

Walt,

Just like the hen in the photo of this eBay ad. She obviously has split wing; but people are paying $$$ for hatching eggs from a bird with an obvious defect.....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-Chocolate...558?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c01fe62e

Page 7 of the APA SOP Crow head: a narrow, shallow head and beak, a serious defect.

When they use "serious defect" that is one step away from being DQ'd. People who don't show many times don't care about APA defects, but this one is an indication of the overall structure of the bird. You do not see crow head in a robust bird of any breed. Brahma's for instance should have a wide skull and that is part of the breed. In many ways the head structure is an indicator of the birds overall viability...not to mention how strange it looks to see a bird that is supposed to be massive with a tiny, skinny little head that looks like it should be on a Modern Game bantam.

I have no issues with Greenfire, I'm just giving my assessment of what I see on their website. Their lightweight breeds seem to be OK.

Walt​

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Chocolate is in fact sex linked.

A Chocolate MALE X a Black FEMALE = 50% Black males split to Chocolate and 50% Chocolate females.

Also, some Splash birds can be very, very pale and look almost white. They should all have a gray cast to their feathers though that helps to identify that they aren't in fact actually White. The shaft of a Splash birds feathers should be dark whereas a White bird will have white feather shafts.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
Thank you!

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
Page 7 of the APA SOP Crow head: a narrow, shallow head and beak, a serious defect.

When they use "serious defect" that is one step away from being DQ'd. People who don't show many times don't care about APA defects, but this one is an indication of the overall structure of the bird. You do not see crow head in a robust bird of any breed. Brahma's for instance should have a wide skull and that is part of the breed. In many ways the head structure is an indicator of the birds overall viability...not to mention how strange it looks to see a bird that is supposed to be massive with a tiny, skinny little head that looks like it should be on a Modern Game bantam.

I have no issues with Greenfire, I'm just giving my assessment of what I see on their website. Their lightweight breeds seem to be OK.

Walt

There is also a picture on page 18.

 

[jeremy]

Christie Rhae, look at my edits in my previous post... LOL, I had the colors backwards the first time I typed it out. You might want to delete where you quoted be to avoid any confusion.

 

[fowlman01]

Quote:
I know very little about the chocolate gene, so I did not respond. However....splash cannot be pure white. We are only talking about visual white, most of us do not know what our birds are really carrying in terms of color genes. There are not always visual clues. Splash is usually very easy to see though.


Walt

 

[jeremy]

Thanks for the description Walt.

 

[Phage]

Hold on guys, GF imports birds that are not available here, that some people want from over the world into the US at great expense.
They are just a business and have a product, just like an importer of a cute car (eg mini Cooper) and they can charge a premium for them because people will pay. They need to recoop expenses and make some money.

I don't think they pretend to be great showers of perfect examples of the breeds they have. They leave the breeding and improving to buyers to focus on. JMHO.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
I agree. If they showed some of their birds they would have the only ones!
I read their whole blog and they hardly sound like a hatchery. They sound like responsible people who are on a mission to save dwindling breeds and bring them to the US. And then after a lot of work they make these animals available. They try to get different lines so the breed does not interbreed too much and can be sustained. They do more than just chickens too.
I am sure they could be totally fake and misrepresenting themselves...I dunno. Maybe people have had bad personal experiences with them?
I don't have plans to buy anything from them. Just really liked their farm philosophy. I want to create a forest pen for my little razorback pig after reading about how they keep their red wattle pigs.

 

[fowlman01]

Again..I have no problem with GF. I have sent customers to them. I was just surprised that their large chickens had heads like that. I also understand that it is a business and it has to make money. Once you sell a pair, you already have one other possible competitor for sales in that breed and the market meets the demand in two years. I think they are trustworthy and responsible, I just don't care for the heads in their Brahma's and Orps...which can be purchased from other sources here in the US, so I don't think they would have imported those, but maybe they did. If they did they should have bought locally. Their Marans come from Bev Davis...or so I am told.

Their prices are published, so folks have the choice. I also understand that it is a business and you can't operate a business at a loss. Whoever wrote the material for the website did an outstanding job. I pretty much agree with Phage and Christie.....they perform a valuable service. I also agree that it is important that the customers know that they have some work ahead of them and some of these breeds are not at full potential yet. There are no Standards for most of what they sell, so there is no way to know what they are really supposed to look like. I have no problem with most of what they sell.

Bottom line is that I am a poultry snob. I was called that by the Australian nature films producer Mark Lewis, so it must be true. And the most important thing. My posts are my opinion only....just like most of the other posts on BYC.

The plus side to this diversion is: Now some people know what crow head is and that is a very positive thing.

Walt