Ameraucanas vs EE

[Organics North]

No I would give them credit. I believe MPC when they say they have a limited amount of Ameraucana.
I disagree with Sandhill calling their EE's Ameraucana, but regardless they are making a distinction.. Therefor, I personally doubt they are "Lying"...
HOwever I do not consider Ignorance as Bliss when it comes to the deceptive practice of hatchieres... APA set the standard when? Way back in 1984! Hatcheries have had enough time to update their litterature...

I personally get tired of this subject.. Every day some on comes on and says they have Ameraucana when they are not they are EE's..

BlacksheepCardigans, interesting angle... Landrace... hmmmm!

Either way I wished this would be resolved.. People are confused, people feel ripped off by hatcheries selling birds as misspelled "Americana" and so forth..

Pure Ameracuana can be had from top breeders (Show winning stock) for $6 a chick... The price is not that high for the real thing...

Again my "pet" is a white EE, she lays a blue egg, pure white, beard and muffs... Just green legs instead of slate, and eye color is a little yellow instead of bay.. She is an EE, I will cross her with a pure Ameracuana Roo to make more EE's hopefully like her. (I think she has some Leghorn in her, she lays like crazy!)

ON

 

[punky rooster]

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yes I am saying they label theirs as "Ameraucanas"

 

[draye]

No I would give them credit. I believe MPC when they say they have a limited amount of Ameraucana.
I disagree with Sandhill calling their EE's Ameraucana, but regardless they are making a distinction.. Therefor, I personally doubt they are "Lying"...
HOwever I do not consider Ignorance as Bliss when it comes to the deceptive practice of hatchieres... APA set the standard when? Way back in 1984! Hatcheries have had enough time to update their litterature...
I personally get tired of this subject.. Every day some on comes on and says they have Ameraucana when they are not they are EE's..

Yes there are many who get tired of it, but people still ask and I think they are entitled to ask.
Mostly what I get tired of the the constant downing of hatcheries, (I do not think this as ploy to rip people off, I believe their stock is as much Ameraucana as any ones just not to an APA standard), and people who constantly parrot what others say. I don't feel that these parrots really know what they are talking about just saying what others say to have something to say.​

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

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Here's what I think the hatcheries feel - the ones, like Murray McMurray, who are breeding for the pet chicken market and know they can profit from a name no matter what the chicken ends up looking like. I know that blue/green egg layers have been available from MM since the 70s or very early 80s at least. I know because my family bought them, shared an order with all the other 4-H kids, and I was a cloverbud at that point. So it was '79/'80. They also had turkens (Naked Necks) at that point and some other breeds that we all thought were weird.

At that time they called them Araucanas. There was no such thing as the word "Ameraucana." According to the Ameraucana club the muffed/beared tailed birds were being shown and winning as Araucanas at that time too. "Araucana" meant a chicken that came from South America and laid colored eggs.

A few years after that in the APA world enough people made a fuss that they weren't the rumpless Araucanas that the portmanteau "Ameraucana" showed up as something that meant "They lay colored eggs like the Araucana but they're the North American version." The hatcheries switched to that word.

I really don't think the hatcheries have ANY intention of changing away from using that word, because they'd say "Look, we were using Araucana before you guys were born, we switched to Ameraucana to keep you happy, they've always been THE SAME BIRDS. We had them long before your club even came into existence. We didn't buy birds from somebody else and mis-label them." All of which is true.

The Ameraucana thing is the only one I can think of where the hatcheries had the birds before the breed came into existence as a breed. Everything else - if they want to market a Light Brahma - they've got to buy APA Light Brahmas from somebody. After that they can breed as carelessly as they want and their Light Brahmas can go downhill, but they started with a breed identified as a breed. With their colored egg layers, they started with the South American colored-egg-layers that everybody else was calling Araucanas too because nobody really knew what they were. The Ameraucana club decided in the early 80s that they only wanted certain plumage and shank colors; this was LONG after the hatcheries had their birds. The hatcheries have also owned many, many more birds than the Ameraucana club (which was about five people at that point) did. So the hatcheries say "Fine, call your birds what you want; we'll do the same."

The Sandhill guy is interested in preserving utility strains of heritage birds. He knows APA standards. He obviously thinks, and I think with some justification, that the gamey-colored birds can be called Ameraucanas as long as he is clear that they are not APA standard colors, because Ameraucana was devised to mean "those colored egg layers that have muffs and tails." He selects for egg color as blue as possible because he believes that's what make the breed heritage-worthy. He ALSO has black Ameraucanas that meet the APA standard.

 

[TK Poultry]

I get tired of this subject too but its probably because I have Ameraucanas and hear this song and dance alot! all the time people post on the Ameraucana thread with EE's and we go throught it again. Patty Pickard has a great little table on her site its quite informative and strait to the point. Easter Eggers actually have their own informal club. You can get more details there instead of debating whether Sandhill has real Ameraucanas or McMurray has EE's.

http://www.faithvalleywaterfowl.com/ameraucanas.html
You can see the table here.

 

[clairabean]

Great topic! It is enlightening to hear about this for a newbie like myself.

 

[TK Poultry]

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[BlacksheepCardigans]

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The problem with that table is that it really DOES define Easter Eggers as mutts. According to that table, every chicken on earth that's not a purebred is an Easter Egger. Mix a Sebright and a Polish? Easter Egger! Oh, look at that big white bird with the feathered pink shanks and the single comb - must be an Easter Egger!

And that's just not correct. EEs come in a lot of different colors, but they're very recognizable--and the gamey-colored ones breed true to plumage color as well as breeding true to egg color and shank color and muffs/beard.

I understand that Ameraucana breeders have a bit of a thin skin about this, especially since everybody's always bouncing in introducing their "Ameraucanas" that don't fit the standard, but the fact that there's an APA Ameraucana doesn't mean that there's not ALSO a very consistent blue/green-egg-laying bird with muffs and beard and gamey body and coloration.

 

[Organics North]

Thank you BlacksheepCardigans
I enjoy your perspective very much.
So what is up with so many hatcheries misspelling Ameraucana. They spell it Americana??



Possibly the confusion comes into play because most often a new breed is created by crossing two different breeds... In the case of Ameraucana an APA Breed was created by extracting it from an already mixed breed...

ON

 

[punky rooster]

you only know that MM ameraucanas are EE because you have seen them. have you ever seen or had sand hill's ameraucana? so you MUST see it to be sure.
punky