Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[Chicken5555]

Why limit yourself? Mate both with him (unless you have another male), tag the chicks and see what you get. Sometimes you get nice birds from not so perfect parents and sometimes you get not so perfect offspring from nice parents. When that happens, I usually wait for the grandbabies because something nice usually pops up there.

You and Susan have both made the same suggestion. I suppose I'm being to picky because I'm worried about making the wrong choice for the breed. But you're right I can use both and see how each one's chicks turn out by tagging which chicks are from which female. Thank you so much.
Other than Maxson, I have 10 BBS chicks in the brooder box. I suppose I'll have to wait and see what I get out of that batch.

 

[samouw]

Ok, some of you may have missed me for the last few weeks...and some, not so much. lol

Anyway..one of the things that has helped me through my recovery was getting this lovely boy yesterday. He is a young (2.5-3 months) blue cockerel from Clif Redden, and will be my blue flock sire next Spring.

The big plus? He is such a sweetheart! I usually have a "hands off" attitude towards young cockerels, to prevent future issues..but I'm having a hard time with him.

His name? Mr. Bo Jangles

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[Ravynscroft]

Ok, some of you may have missed me for the last few weeks...and some, not so much. lol Anyway..one of the things that has helped me through my recovery was getting this lovely boy yesterday. He is a young (2.5-3 months) blue cockerel from Clif Redden, and will be my blue flock sire next Spring. The big plus? He is such a sweetheart! I usually have a "hands off" attitude towards young cockerels, to prevent future issues..but I'm having a hard time with him. His name? Mr. Bo Jangles

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He's handsome, Susan! That had to be a great spirit lifter for you!

 

[chickenmomma16]

I need to run something by everyone... Please bear with me. I have some WBS chicks from an early June hatch and 3 of them are beardless (2 pullets and a cockerel). When I first got them I thought no way I would keep the beardless ones long but there is a pullet and a cockerel that keeps making me second guess myself. The reason being is they have the most color in their tails and the cockerel in his breast, the cockerel is maturing the fastest, he has a super broad back and the best leg color of all my boys (even split 8 cockerels 8 pullets), he is also really dark, he was the first to get a full black chest, and he has the least amount of red coming up through his tail. Nice comb too, even pea comb from day one. So there is a lot of things pulling for this guy and it's not making it easy to cull him. I just need some advice... Here is the full sister (these 2 were the result of a single mating) to the cockerel showing the color of her tail in comparison to another pullet with the most color of my bearded girls. The rest of the 6 bearded pullets have less and less color.


My gut says to just bite the bullet and cull all 3 of the beardless ones and just count it as a loss. The second beardless pullet is the only chick from one breeding pen too. But under what circumstances would allowing a beardless Ameraucana to be a breeder be acceptable? If ever?

I don't know what the rest of your flock looks like, but if you check my responses to other posters on this you will get my imput.  I would keep at least one of those nice colored birds and work with it.  You would be looking to improve color in the colorless ones and beards in the best colored ones.  You could put it with one of your males that has the best muff/beard.  The second one also has good color, barring anything else wrong, you could just use her and scrap the first if you want, but don't be surprised if you do hatch some beardless chicks, your birds could have single copies beard/muff genes.  Keep an eye out for black in hackle in females.  It does tend to show up in the females and males.  More in the males.  When choosing your male, also consider the one with the less black in hackles.  So, as far as the beard/muff question, yes you could use them it just depends on how much hatching, culling and working with them you want to do.

All my Ameraucanas are young still and this is my first investment in the breed so I have no adults to compare them too. I was fully aware of the beardless/single copy possibility when I ordered the chicks. And I didn't get them wanting to throw them all in a pen and hatch out mass chicks. I wanted a challenge and that is what I got! I do have a completely unrelated BW cock I will cross my best pullet(s) to. I have a few options still for 2017 so guess I will keep everyone a little longer and continue to mull over all the options.
All together I have 8 pullets (2 beardless from different pens) and 8 cockerels (1 beardless and one cull for sure) to choose from. They are too young still for critiqueing everything else but in a few months I will snap a bunch of pictures and create a new thread so I won't totally overload this one and reference it here to get opinions on who should stay and who should go.

Holy smokes though, it's amazing how much food these cockerels are going through! I had 24 layers before and they didn't go through as much feed as I am going through now!

I can't wait to get rid of some of these boys!

 

[samouw]

Needs to mature more to tell the truth.  Especially in tail.  Can't tell alot by one sided shot.  I am wondering if they are single copy on muff/beard though.

No, they are not single copy on muffs and beards.

 

[pamperedamber]

Here are a couple of pictures of my new BBS chicks.
These 4 are all that Dash wanted to care for.

These 3 are from the eggs I took from Dash after she decided she didn't want to care for the rest.

There are still 9 eggs we are waiting to hatch in the incubator.

 

[Saris]

That is a lovely splash pullet!

Thanks!

 

[newlinta]

Woohoo! Just hatched 9(out of 12 eggs set) bantam wheaten/blue wheaten/splash wheaten chicks. So excited to have these guys! Pray for lots of pullets!
There's a bantam Sumatra in there too...Lol

 

[MrsBachbach]

No, they are not single copy on muffs and beards.

No offense. They aren't mine, so all I can go off is appearances. If they are yours, you should know.

 

[LaPoulet]

I haven't been on here in quite a while due to flooding and just being busy. Thought I would share my exciting news. One of my splash hens laid her first egg today.

Still waiting on five other girls as they are all the same age. End of 27 weeks. Monday would have been 28.

It was a decent size. Go figure that my egg chart is packed up since the flood so I really can't give numbers or letters yet.

I'm so happy to finally get my first Ameraucana egg! Always seems like it takes forever but it's really not compared to other breeds. I hope everyone is doing well.