Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[sealer39]

I personally believe that Cackle has gone the right way. The other hatcheries need to either designate their birds as Non SOP or “Production” or as EEs with a history and explanation of their line explained and what the customer is getting, and be absolutely clear their non SOP stock is not representative of current breed standards. I believe they need to invest in quality Ameraucana breeding stock and start two breeding programs like Cackle has done for everyone’s sanity. They could thus move towards Rainbow feathered non SOP colors but all other aspects SOP for their Easter Eggers and maintain dedicated Color lines as close as possible to SOP like they supposably do for other breeds... no one expects show birds from them just representative stock we can work with. Sigh.

I believe you’re right about Cackle. I bought 6 Ameraucanas (3 blue, 3 black) from them this year. Only 3 survived shipping so I have 2 blacks and 1 blue. They do look like pure Ameraucanas at 17 weeks of age.
The true test for me though will be the color of their eggs. I have 6 EEs already and I don’t need anymore green eggs.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

That is one difference between my first “Ameraucanas” and my current adult birds... the first ones I had in the 90s and they laid extremely pail green eggs. In general the two hatchery strains had similar wild chick markings with the adults feathering out into nice chicken camo colors for field or leaf piles. Both groups were willow legged, had a mix of earlobe colors, similar tail angels, similar eye and beak colors, pea combs and the muffs and beard. The second group ones from Ideal all laid nice blue which delighted me. Another difference though between chick orders was Ideal had the white chicks but the first hatchery in the 90s did not. (The things you can observe when one works at a feed store with large orders or gets down to feed store day of delivery to get first peek of big order). So now I have Cackle chicks... we shall see what they lay. However not a single chick I received was wild pattern (first time direct ordering this year so a much smaller pool to observe) but a plethora of colors mixed but they will not feather as camo birds the way my previous birds did which is interesting, and based on colors I am seeing I think Cackle has been adding SOP line birds to their EE flock breeding program at a higher rate probably to improve egg and look of birds... so I am hopeful I get at least nice green eggs or blue instead of washed out like my first hens years ago in the 90s, they all have nice muffs and beards, as to rest I shall see as the mature. Eventually I will put in an order for Ameraucana Ameraucana to improve the EE stock, and breed a specific SOP color too.

 

[NNYchick]

I think the biggest issue I have with hatcheries selling EE birds as Ameraucana is that people believe that is what they are "because that is what they sold me", breed and sell them as Ameraucana then the cycle keeps going.
Cackle can be given credit for separating the 2 but it appears from their video they flock breed rather than selective breed, so if they are adding SOP AM to EE then what recessive faults are going to pop up in those chicks in a couple generations?

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Well I think they have two different breeding programs that is why they say EE for one group and Ameraucana for their other line.

As to breeding the way we would, no, they do big flock breeding so Black Ameraucanas to Black Ameraucanas for example... are all the chicks going to be SQ probably not. But representative yes... so I can look at their Sultans and they are Sultans but not SQ per say. That is how Hatcheries are. I am just glad they are trying to rectify the situation instead of continuing to totally confuse everyone. Many hatcheries were sold their EE stock as Ameraucanas back in the day so some are in denial mode... lots of stuff happened when the breed was working through becoming recognized that added to the confusion too not all of the fall out of the process was hatcheries fault. But now that an SOP exists all the hatcheries should really address the issue with honesty for the consumers, it has been going on too long, and they need to sell representatives of the breed that look enough SOP to justify the name and explain their EE lines better.

 

[bruceha2000]

Funny isn't it that the hatcheries could sell EEs before there was a recognized Ameraucana breed but then sold the same line of birds as Ameraucana when surely they were not.

 

[NNYchick]

Funny isn't it that the hatcheries could sell EEs before there was a recognized Ameraucana breed but then sold the same line of birds as Ameraucana when surely they were not.

It seems I read a post about this on here in the exhibition forum. They could not find any proof that hatcheries sold EE back then, they were selling Araucana and in the description it was referred to as the easter egg chicken because of the blue eggs. I will see if I can find it.

 

[bruceha2000]

Please do. My understanding is that before there was an APA Araucana breed followed by an APA Ameraucana breed, the birds these two breeds were developed from were called Araucana the Easter Egg chicken because of the blue and green eggs. The original blue egg chickens came from the Araucania region of Chile and were mixed with all sorts of breeds here before people decided to refine them for specific traits.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

Well I think they have two different breeding programs that is why they say EE for one group and Ameraucana for their other line.

As to breeding the way we would, no, they do big flock breeding so Black Ameraucanas to Black Ameraucanas for example... are all the chicks going to be SQ probably not. But representative yes... so I can look at their Sultans and they are Sultans but not SQ per say. That is how Hatcheries are. I am just glad they are trying to rectify the situation instead of continuing to totally confuse everyone. Many hatcheries were sold their EE stock as Ameraucanas back in the day so some are in denial mode... lots of stuff happened when the breed was working through becoming recognized that added to the confusion too not all of the fall out of the process was hatcheries fault. But now that an SOP exists all the hatcheries should really address the issue with honesty for the consumers, it has been going on too long, and they need to sell representatives of the breed that look enough SOP to justify the name and explain their EE lines better.

Instead of just changing the name to 'Americana'...or worse yet, not changing it at all.

 

[RaineyTN]

@CrisAnderson27 Here’s some of my splash birds I’m growin out now I can find pictures of them when they were younger if that’ll help

 

[NNYchick]

Please do. My understanding is that before there was an APA Araucana breed followed by an APA Ameraucana breed, the birds these two breeds were developed from were called Araucana the Easter Egg chicken because of the blue and green eggs. The original blue egg chickens came from the Araucania region of Chile and were mixed with all sorts of breeds here before people decided to refine them for specific traits.

Here is the thread. I may have misunderstood I thought this thread said that Araucana were mentioned as Easter egg chicken in an article but the easter Eggers weren’t being called that until after Ameraucana was recognized. I still am confused by the difference in poor breed Ameraucana and an EE, for example I’ve seen hatcheries sell horrible looking silkies that aren’t even bantam size but because they have silkies feathers they still consider them silkies even if they wouldn’t make it at a show. I understand why Ameraucana breeders do it but I’m just not sure every poor breed Ameraucana is an EE. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/ameraucanas-am-i-off-base-here.1373313/#post-22584791