Ameraucanas in a Nutshell (looking for pictures of Ameraucanas with defects and quality birds)

[NagemTX]

Thankyou for everyone's submitting pictures for me to use. Truly appreciate it!!
I have finished up my first few sections describing what the head should look like and I hope to share them soon and see what y'all think!
But does anyone happen to have the scale of points that they could share with me out of the SOP? I don't have the actual Standard of Perfection...I need to get one. I just have books from the different clubs on the breeds I'm interested.

Give me a sec and I'll get then I have the APA book. When you say scale of points what exactly do you mean?

 

[NagemTX]

Give me a sec and I'll get then I have the APA book. When you say scale of points what exactly do you mean?

Just sent you pictures of the APA SOP.

 

[RememberTheWay]

So here is an example of why tail spread must be evaluated later. Every one I showed this bantam pullet to at 12 wks old said she was a cull due a pinched tail. And I would have agreed based on those pictures of her.

BUT- Once she matured out her tail was actually very nicely spread. Had I listened and culled then I would have been culling for literally no good reason.

This very pullet is why I do not evaluate tails and several other areas until the birds are much older. Lesson learned.

Btw- pictures are posting out of order. The two darker photos with the black produce crate behind her are the later "after" photos I'm referring to above. Probably is obvious just wanted to clarify though

 

[NagemTX]

I think most breeders don't cull early on Ameraucana unless it's like willow legs, cross beak or something else that is way off. Ameraucana seam to take more time to show their full potential.

 

[RememberTheWay]

Below :

Splash Bantam Ameraucana Pullet
Approximately 12 wks old

Shown in photos is one of the appropriate shank colors and a nice example of head shape, correct female pea comb, and decent muffs and beard.

She is dirty in these photos. I will try to get one of my bantam pullets washed up and blown dry to get some better examples of muffs and beard for you. And I can show you some appropriate coloring for the Wheaton variety. Lavender Silvers are not an accepted color variety but I can provide photos of them if you would like. Their color (other then the pink breast) will show a very good example of the shade of lavender one should be breeding towards in self blue (I don't use this term anymore even though it's what the standard calls lavender because I have later learned that internationally they do not use "self blue" other countries use the term lavender. Personally, I don't think we should have approved the term "self blue" in the clubs bc it only serves to create confusion. We already have enough problems with blue and lavender lines being bred together unknowingly. Just my two cents worth though.

To add context to this photo- I also believe that this bird actually was lavender and splash at the same time. She had dark feather shafts and light feather shafts which can be an indication on the two colors being mixed- though not always. I never got the chance to test breed her though.

I would also like to add that you may want to add in you book/site information about to separate those two colors if a breeder finds blue and lavender in the same bird. Everything I read online said it can't be done and to just start over. Blue is actually a dominant color and is fairly simple to remove from any breeding program. Much easier then removing a recessive actually. The plan moving forward would be to breed your suspect birds to a black (hopefully silver based) and only keep black offspring. Those chicks will be split to lavender. By only keeping the black split offspring you eliminate the blue in the line and can move forward accordingly.

A lot of breeders these days say that the shredder gene can fixed without breeding to black- which is what you will find as advice to do online everywhere. I don't have experience with this at all- but I can get you some pictures of what the shredder gene looks like on a lavender bird.

I will continue to look through my photos and post what I dig up as I come across them

 

[RememberTheWay]

Also- maybe pictures of actual purebred Ameraucana chicks shanks and feet should be included. I see too many times online false information being passed on shank and feet color and people being told that their chick isnt purebred bc the shanks look a little yellow. This isn't necessarily true. All chicks tend to hatch with yellowish shanks due to the yolk uptake. Adult birds should not have green legs or yellow legs but as day old chicks it's totally possible for their legs to look a little yellow and still absolutely be purebred Ameraucana's.

Also on shank colors- it should also be noted that depending on the variety of Ameraucana the accepted shank color will be slightly different. For instance black Ameraucana are going to have black shanks not slate blue. And some of the varieties have lighter slate legs then others. I will work on getting photos of this for you too

 

[NagemTX]

Also- maybe pictures of actual purebred Ameraucana chicks shanks and feet should be included. I see too many times online false information being passed on shank and feet color and people being told that their chick isnt purebred bc the shanks look a little yellow. This isn't necessarily true. All chicks tend to hatch with yellowish shanks due to the yolk uptake. Adult birds should not have green legs or yellow legs but as day old chicks it's totally possible for their legs to look a little yellow and still absolutely be purebred Ameraucana's.

Also on shank colors- it should also be noted that depending on the variety of Ameraucana the accepted shank color will be slightly different. For instance black Ameraucana are going to have black shanks not slate blue. And some of the varieties have lighter slate legs then others. I will work on getting photos of this for you too

Yeah leg and feet color on chicks can be deceiving.

 

[RememberTheWay]

The videos I linked are of Lavender Silver Bantam Ameraucana chicks and Blue Bantam Ameraucana (can't remember if other breeds were in the video too) but these are standard bred bantam Ameraucana as purebred as they could possibly come. They were about 1-2 wks old in this video. Their legs have a willow/yellowish cast to them. I guarantee you a bunch of online people would comment to tell me that they were not purebred. They absolutely are. These birds and the offspring were bred by Russel Blair. I only point out all this bc I fell victim to information online too but have since learned the truth and would like to see this information posted with examples for people so they don't get deceived like a lot of people have been. This fact is a slippery slope though because shank color can be used to determine genetics it just has to be done with all the information in mind.

Parents of Lavender Silver's

Parents of a couple of the Blue's

 

[RememberTheWay]

Oh- AND- Don't forget about the egg color misinformation being slung around online. I would suggest you get an egg color card from the breed club and show that plus various shades of actual eggs from breeders. Blue/green actually is an acceptable color. Maybe even green because shades are highly subjective and are perceived differently by everyone. I've also learned that depending on what color variety of Ameraucana your talking about egg color and shades will vary. Of course brown, olive, and white eggs should never be bred towards. But I've even seen long timers say they've had birds that started laying a pale blue egg and the older that bird got the more washed out and "white" that egg looked. And I absolutely could see that happening because shades can change drastically just throughout the season with it being vibrant at spring and losing color at fall/winter. The buff color birds from what I understand tend to lay more of green tinted eggs. Lavender Ameraucana do as well. But this will also vary between breeders, specific lines, and even bird to bird. It's being passed online that Ameraucana (and Legbars) are supposed to be true blue egg layers and while it is true that they should be homozygous for the blue egg gene- that doesn't necessarily translate to all eggs being vibrant blue in reality. There is an entire range of shades that are acceptable.

IMHO- type should be prioritized before egg color is considered and if a bird has exceptional type but lays a blue green tinted eggs vs a bird with terrible type but vibrant blue egg- I'm picking the one with exceptional type everytime.

 

[RememberTheWay]

I think most breeders don't cull early on Ameraucana unless it's like willow legs, cross beak or something else that is way off. Ameraucana seam to take more time to show their full potential.

I know a lot of people are looking for anything and everything they can cull as early as possible in an effort to reduce feeding costs of birds that they will not be breeding from. Which I completely understand and am quite guilty of focusing on all the details and trying to figure out what all of it means. Lol. I have a zillion questions about everything! I'm looking at chick down and comparing and wondering what each tiny things means in correlation to maturity. I catalog changes as they grow and compare them to each other and other people's birds. Constantly learning and evolving my breeding management practices. And I have changed a lot over the years for the better.

I am always looking at the details to learn to breed a better bird but I see tons of people simply wanting to have clear checklist for culling for cost savings.