Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[pips&peeps]

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Yep, you are correct. He is from Gary's line. (Gary got his original buffs from me quite a while back. He may have added something to them. I don't know.)

The pullet is straight Pips & Peeps lineage. I have a couple birds that lay a very light blue egg, a couple that lay a minty green egg and a couple that lay a greenish egg.

 

[Illia]

By the way, love their legbands. I honestly did not even realized how "personalized" they were until today.

Well, that's nice to know. I believe I should be expecting the pullet to lay pretty soon. . . I'm also hoping the cockerel is in the mood for mating, because I'm thinking about using him as soon as I can before my best Wheaten stops laying for the year. I just hope I can tame the tail of the cockerel in the offspring, because I'm noticing he doesn't quite have sickles yet. . . And betting by the time he will, his tail will be at or near 90 degrees.

So, with the cockerel having blue, is it because he's already part Blue Wheaten, or just your guess? Because I do understand that Blue in Buff does the same effect that Khaki in buff would.

 

[dak]

pips&peeps :

That's called fretting and it is common with the lavender gene, ie poor feather quality.

The key is to keep crossing out to black and improving the size, feather quality and evenness of the color.


The cock bird I used to create the hens I used in my split pen had excellent feather quality, good type and good eye color.

The cock bird I used to create the cock bird in the split pen mainly had size. He also was carrying a few errant genes.

There is still alot of work to be done with this new variety.

Ummmmm... is that a yes?

 

[Dipsy Doodle Doo]

Hi! That is a question I've meant to ask about toe-punching for marking. I've been toe-punching, but only for birds I knew I was keeping here. I worried that some someone might consider it 'disfiguring' (even though it's barely noticeable).

Lisa

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
Ummmmm... is that a yes?

Only a couple.

 

[Illia]

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I don't think I'll ever toe-punch a bird as I do find it slightly 'disfiguring' as I wouldn't want their hole to get caught in anything (our birds are pastured) but if I bought one who is, (like the Buff I just bought) I honestly wouldn't mind. Don't know about other people though.

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
No, most of the breeders do it. Most of the time people don't even notice it.

Illia,

I don't know how the blue works exactly in buff. I have never been able to really sit down with a well versed breeder to talk about it. The buff genes are very complicated and alot of people don't like to breed buff because it is a difficult one to do.

There are almost always alot of culls due to lack of evenness in the color. I had quite a few chicks hatch last year that had a partridge appearance in the chick down and I sold them all right off the bat. I have had a couple with black dots on them this year and I have only keep the gals for breeding that have no peppering at all in them.

If you don't end up liking the cockerel. I will try to send you some hatching eggs in the spring. The tail is supposed to be set at 45% above the horizontal.

 

[Illia]

pips&peeps :

Quote:
No, most of the breeders do it. Most of the time people don't even notice it.

Illia,

I don't know how the blue works exactly in buff. I have never been able to really sit down with a well versed breeder to talk about it. The buff genes are very complicated and alot of people don't like to breed buff because it is a difficult one to do.

There are almost always alot of culls due to lack of evenness in the color. I had quite a few chicks hatch last year that had a partridge appearance in the chick down and I sold them all right off the bat. I have had a couple with black dots on them this year and I have only keep the gals for breeding that have no peppering at all in them.

If you don't end up liking the cockerel. I will try to send you some hatching eggs in the spring. The tail is supposed to be set at 45% above the horizontal.

I'm letting him grow out, see how he turns to be. He's got "bantam" type eyes and really small muffs, but I'm going to see how he matures. His tail currently sits at about 45-50 degrees, plus there's a lot of broken feathers so it looks rather messy and odd, I just hope his new sickles won't ruin anything. My black cockerel's practically perfect tail was about 20 degrees above horizontal before he grew sickles, so. . . Just waiting to see how things come along.

By the way, do you have any pictures right now of your Wheatens? I'd love to see how your current breeding stock looks, as I'm really considering replacing all but one of my pullets and I'm definitely culling my cockerel really soon. I'd love to know how yours look. Mine I got from someone who got their birds from you, but I think they just didn't breed them right, as I've got a very "hocky" and thin cockerel as well as some lanky looking girls with poor coloring in their tails. Great egg color though.​

 

[Mahonri]

I get more of an education every time I read this thread....

 

[Goose and Fig]

Quote:
Ummmmm... is that a yes?

I've noticed the same thing in some of my lavs. It almost looks like some of them have faint barring.
The roos just started crowing at 4 months (too cute

) I don't have "enough" to work with the splits yet, so I'm going to hatch more lavs a.s.a.p. and as soon as I get some chicks the girls are going in with a split roo from Jean and a black roo from Juliect. Besides feather quality, the egg color could use improvement from the blacks anyway. I'm really happy with the personalities though (and great beards!)- it makes it all worth it!