Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[dak]

First to hatch this morning.

 

[CRYSTALCREEK]

I wanted to post some pics of the lavs for MADAMWLF and others who were curious about the color. Sometimes, the shanks of ameraucana chicks CAN appear yellowish on hatch, due to the concentration of the same pigment that gives free-range chicken egg yolks that dark yellow/orange. There is an old thread on the breed club website about this very topic. By a couple of weeks of age, that pigment fades away and you can look at the foot pads and see that the skin is actually white, not yellow. Lavs are a work in progress, as anyone will tell you, and they are not a recognized color variety in either APA or ABA. Sometimes the lav chicks will have yellow down in the face area, in the same places you might normally see yellow down on a black chick (see the pic of the black chicks for reference regarding this). I guess this might include some of the primary wing tip areas, as well. If there is residual white feathers in these areas by the time the bird gets its final plumage, I would consider it a cull. I have not been able to visit this thread very often this spring because I'm working two jobs right now. I hope these pics answer any questions.

First, the black chicks...for reference about where you might see yellow (or silver-y white) down.......

Now, the lavs.....

There is a lot of interest in this color. This variety is not for the faint at heart, in my opinion. You will cull plenty of chicks if you are serious about improving the variety. I hatched lots of chicks this spring and maybe have one or two that are superior to what I started with (maybe). It is so important that blacks continue to be reintroduced back into the lavs until type is established, along with other traits like full muffs/beards, wing carriage, tail carriage, feather quality, eye color, egg color, proper pea comb, etc. The front chick in the first lav group photo is a clean-faced bird, btw.

There is no such thing as a 75% lav bird. You either have lav or you don't. Lav can be carried "hidden" behind (hopefully) black, in what is referred to as a "split". Splits are visually black, but carry a single copy for lav hidden.

lav bred to lav will produce 100% lav all the time; no chipmunk stripes, no mottles, no dark markings.
lav bred to a split will produce 50% lav and more splits (50%), again, carrying that lav gene hidden
lav bred to black produces 100% splits, all visually black and all carrying the lav gene hidden

The tricky combination is split bred to split. This combination produces
25% lav
50% split
25% black and you will not be able to differentiate between the splits and the pure blacks unless you test breed EVERY bird with enough resulting offspring to make an informed analysis. All splits will not have yellow wing tips and anything with a yellow wing tip is not necessarily a split. I know there is some carryover from silkies about the yellow wing tips being associated with a "split".

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[StevenW.]

Quote:

 

[StevenW.]

CrystalCreek: Those Lavendar and Black chicks are so cute!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
Congratulations!

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
GREAT post! Thank you for the information!!!

 

[Hens and Roos]

pips&peeps :

Quote:
hi and

I don't show, I just know what I like

. He looks nice to me except I like my combs tighter. I tend to cull the bigger combed boys, I like a nice tight low profile comb, but that is personal preference

His tail carriage is a bit high and what many of us are still working on is: the beard needs to be completely black and the hackles are supposed to have no ticking.

He should weigh 6 1/2 lbs.​

So by what age should the beard be completely black? The rooster we have is 13 months old now and has a beard similar to the Stonecottagefarm posted, I'm guessing that the beard won't change at this point. That's okay he's the favorite of my DS(6) so will be staying

 

[savingdogs]

Okay, all you Ameraucana experts, I have a flock of "Ameraucanas" that I believe after reading this thread are EEs. I'm not particularly concerned as I'm just using them as layers mainly.

However I did get a different roo this year, an "Ameraucana", this time I used a feed store as the source but they are known to have really good birds, I got some rare Russian orloffs there two years ago and bought rare ducks there,etc. I don't know the name of the hatchery or where they get them.

However, my newest cockerel that I bought has no tail at four weeks old. Is that a good sign? I thought taillessness was a sign of being an Araucana, not an Americana. I don't have a pic to post but could take one if that helps. He is at that awkward ugly stage right and looks somewhat like a miniature dinasaur, with just a tiny tuft of tail.

The sexed pullets I purchased with him have tails. I would think they were from the same place but not sure.

 

[stonecottagefarm]

pips&peeps :

Quote:
hi and

I don't show, I just know what I like

. He looks nice to me except I like my combs tighter. I tend to cull the bigger combed boys, I like a nice tight low profile comb, but that is personal preference

His tail carriage is a bit high and what many of us are still working on is: the beard needs to be completely black and the hackles are supposed to have no ticking.

He should weigh 6 1/2 lbs.​

Thanks for responding! I haven't weighed him yet. Wondering how others do this? I am a bit new to all the terms. What does ticking mean? Are you referring to a color or pattern? Read through the following comments and a bit confused by what color his legs, er ahem hackles should or shouldn't be. Also, his beard was plucked out when he was caged by another breeder but is just now growing out. He is less than a year old, will he possibly lose all that fuzz or is that the color he will keep? It doesn't look black to me, more like a slate color. On the tail, at what age do you determine that it's too high/too low? Etc.


I am also wondering what are the things that are right about him? This will help me too. Thanks!

Thanks everyone!

 

[CRYSTALCREEK]

Since I have these pics, here is a progression of photos showing development of my "B" pen male, bred by Harold Shaffer. I like him, but he has some faults....he carries his wings a little too low, he only has a single copy for muffs (and produces clean faced offspring, as a result, when bred to females carrying a single copy) and the primaries in the tail still need some work. Also, he is "poofy", carrying a lot of feather fluff. I have three daughters by him that are splits out of black hens bred by Paul Smith. They are heavy bodied, have a beetle green sheen, and great feathers. I am hoping they lay a large blue egg, like the mothers. We'll see. I have two daughters out of him that are lav and, really, they look pretty much the same as their mother...last pic

lav pullet....