Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[PetRock]

I'm starting to worry now that my Ameraucanas won't have a big enough beard to be considered an Ameraucana.
Here's a closer pic of one of their beards at about 4weeks old. So my question is, are they normally this small
at this age, or do they just not have a good gene? And if I want bigger beards, do I need to mate my hens with a rooster
with a bigger beard or do I go after completely new hens and roosters?

Your chicks are only 4 weeks old. I'm not that experienced with Ameraucanas and only have 1 blue wheaten pullet and 1 silver pullet. My BW didn't have much of a beard at 4 wks old. The breeder that I got her from saw her pic at that age and was concerned that she was clean faced. But her beard began growing and now at 10 months old, she has a big, beautiful beard. Here are a couple of pics of her. She doesn't have much blue in her tail but her beard is big and beautiful!

Cosette at around 4 wks old

Cosette at 4 mos.

 

[Goose and Fig]

No, it is not a DQ. It is undesireable in a show bird.

Her tail angle is just a tad bit high, that is why the fluff is showing.

To me it looked like the fluff was showing because her back feathers were getting worn down- hence my advice to get her a saddle. I know that happens to some of my girls, anyway.

 

[Goose and Fig]

Quote:

See the length of her beard as a juvie? Its not the same as the other group.
Cosette does have nice creamy color and pretty hackles. I'd take her off your hands in a second.

 

[ChickenLeg]

thanks PetRock & HappyMtn!

 

[Goose and Fig]

No problem- we have all been in your shoes. This is a difficult breed to get a flock started in, but once you get it- its so worth it.

 

[Illia]

Not exactly correct.

TAIL: Two top main tail feathers rich wheaten, slightly stippled with black. Balance of main tail feathers dull black, outer web, slightly edged with wheaten.

Slightly edged, still, nearly full-on black, not like the Blue Wheaten's, which by the way I don't understand why it is asked to be so little blue.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Does anyone have wheaten ameraucanas with solid black tails?

There's a picture of a hen with one at the ameraucana breeders club so where did she come from? Some of my birds have ZERO black on the tail at all. It's more like a smudge of black.

Can someone post a picture of a nice type hen? I need to know what i'm looking for.

Not that I am aware of. Over the past three years that has been one of my primary focuses. I believe the picture you are referring to is of a bantam. The bantams have been a work in progress for much longer than the LF and were actually the birds used to get the breed accepted. There are some pretty good looking BWs too.

I just bought a new Canon 7D with a bunch of lenses and stuff. One of my goals this year is to take a weekly pic and post them on a website. Of course, I've got to create the website yet too.

God Bless,

 

[PetRock]

See the length of her beard as a juvie? Its not the same as the other group.
Cosette does have nice creamy color and pretty hackles. I'd take her off your hands in a second.

Thank you, HappyMtn! She came from Jeremy and his BW Claude is her father.

 

[Tailfeathers]

I haven't seen any with solid black tails in person. I have hatched a few with almost solid blue tails, and am working on getting a few more out. You want to try and get the most color in the tail without adding a bunch of black in the hackles.

My main focus this year is productivity. Its impossible to really breed for good traits when you aren't getting any eggs.

Sounds like you have run into the problem I did 2-3 years ago. I have W & BW birds, for example, that are laying white eggs or close to it. The reason for this is because a couple of years ago I was having some production problems with some of my birds in that they weren't giving me any eggs for like 6-9 months. Who cares is I could create the perfect W or BW but it never lays an egg??!! So I wanted to focus on getting my production as high as possible. I had two #10 BW hens that gave me 5 eggs a week each. However, one of those eggs was white and the other was almost white. But production was more important at that time than color so I bred them and kept about every chick I got from them. Now I'm getting more eggs from my pullets but I'm also getting white and light blue eggs. I'm not too concerned about it though because the blue gene is dominant and I know I can get it back. In fact, this year's offspring should see some of the blue coming back on the white eggs and the light blue eggs should be darker.

God Bless,

 

[Tailfeathers]

If they are all like that, they are still ameraucanas but with a major fault. I have always put mine in with the marans to make olive eggers or sold them as EEs. Even if you breed to a nice bearded bird, you run the risk of subsequent generations not having 2 copies of the "beard gene" and you can have more clean-faced birds pop up.

For some reason I'm having a problem finding the OP so I'll reply to HM's post. I would agree with HM but I would also add that I would not be too concerned at four weeks about anything. For one thing, the WBS variety (and I imagine the others too) go thru a pretty dramatic change from chicks to juveniles. My memory is so bad that I can't remember much of anything so I can't recall for certain when it is that the chicks go thru a "clean-faced" stage - but they do. Your bird appears to be at about that age I think.

Now, if you don't see any puffiness as a Day Old once they dry, you'll likely get a clean-faced bird from those. But if they have the puffiness at birth, then later on they'll get their muffs as they molt into their feathers. I just don't remember at what age that occurs.

This is one of the reasons I hope to be able to take a weekly pic of my birds this year from Day Olds thru their first year. I will be creating a website and will then put those pics on my website so there is a catalog of development that others can reference.

God Bless,