Ameraucanas vs EE

[punky rooster]

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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.

because they are!

 

[cashdl]

I will throw my two cents into this long and tired subject. My perspective is from an araucana breeders perspective. Araucanas look nothing like an EE or an Ameraucana and yet when someone asks me what I have and I tell them araucana they automatically say " oh yeah I have that too". When I try to explain to them the difference they look at me like I am an idiot. I mean don't you realize that anyone can get a good araucana at a feed store. LOL! I would be even more irritated if I raised Ameraucanas.

I had a lady in the post office ask me what type of birds I was shipping out to a customer. I told her araucana and she loudly proclaimed " what idiot pays you to ship them when they can get them from a feed store". So now everyone is looking at me like I am ripping people off and I quietly start explaining the difference. I tell them about the tufts, the rumplessness, the fact they should have no tail. I told her that I also have Easter Eggers that I got from the feed store and they are lovely birds. At least the Post Office people by now know me and were pitching in their two cents on my behalf.

I fortuanately have pics on my phone of a couple of my birds and was able to show a lady at a farmers market what my birds look like. I think she still believes she can get them from a hatchery.

I do believe that hatcheries are wonderful things. Where else can you get such a wide assortment of egglayers for so cheap. But that is what the birds are. Egg layers. You cant expect them to be show birds or even conform to show standards, because that is not what they are bred for. They are bred for mass production to sell chicks and look somewhat like the breed is supposed to. With the exception of the EE or Americana. This mispelling of the name should be a red flag but few people look that close. Everyone should realize that if you want a show quality bird, or a good representation of the breed, you should get it from a show breeder not a hatchery. The focus behind the breedings of the two entities ie, breeder and hatchery, is drastically different. One is breeding to sell chicks and the other is breeding to produce birds as close to the standard of quality as possible.

I have no comment on Sandhills birds other than I will say that they may have Black Ameraucanas like they say, however you cannot say you are selling show quality birds when they are day old chicks cause you don't know untill they start to mature. The parents can only be called show quality if the people show their birds and are breeding from the birds that show. Otherwise everything is breeding quality at best. And just because you breed from show birds does not mean that the resultant offspring will be show quality. They may however be true to the APA standard. So I do appreciate their statement that they do not recommend showing their birds as they may not be up to the APA Standard.

The ameraucana as we know it now (does not matter where it came from-thats a dead horse stop beating it) is very different from the EE. It has a sandard of perfection - the EE does not. It is a recognized breed by the APA - the EE is not. It can be shown at APA sanctioned shows - the EE cannot and should not. It comes in limited colors - the EE comes in a wide variety of colors.

Does all that make it better than the EE? Only if you are a breeder or show person. Otherwise the EE is an awesome bird and I am proud to say I have a few in my egg laying flock and I breed them in the fall to my Araucana roosters to get more green and blue egg layers for the farmers market.

So there is my two cents and my frustration since many many people think that just because a bird lays blue or green eggs it is just like their bird they got at the feed store. And even though my birds look nothing like their birds, I paid a whole lot more for my original birds, my birds have tufts, no tail, and are fairly rare, I am the fool cause they can go to the feed store and get something that is just as good or better cause they didn't have to wait for it or pay so much.

Lanae

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

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Honestly? Because they don't have anybody proofreading their pages and because they don't show so they don't care all that much. If you look at Cackle's page on bantam EEs, they spell their breed name "Aruracana" "Aruacana" "Ameraucana" and "Americana" ON THE SAME PAGE. Three of those aren't even words! It's not because somebody made a decision to change it; it's the same reason five thousand people on this board think they're "Orphingtons." If you don't have any reason to care all that much - if you're not showing, and everybody understands what you're talking about even if you get it wrong - you'll type whatever you hear in your head. Americana is the phonetic spelling.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

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I was asked to copy this from another thread.

I'd have to say Sand Hill needs to be given credit for the results of their own breeding program.

We got Black Ameraucanas from them which their catalog stated the original stock were from two show lines. The catalog did not claim the chicks would be show quality.

One of the birds had multi-colored feathering. Another had no facial feathers and a single comb. Another had more correct plumage, but incorrect leg color. I am guessing their original birds were from two show lines, no one has lied, but the current breeding program is not consistently producing show winners. Sand Hill did not claim they were.

Sand Hills EE listing states their EEs do not conform to any show standards and should not be shown.

I know any breeding program is going to throw the off bird from time to time and I probably just got som bad luck. I'm just saying it probably does not take more than a generation or two of bad combination choices to result in poorer quality birds than what you started with. So once you start selecting and breeding your own birds, you need to be judged by your own results, rather than those of a source flock even one generation away.

At this moment, I am not that impressed with Sand Hill's show quality, but they are propagating breeds that might otherwise disappear. The birds were healthy, they lay fine, and the folks were easy to deal with. I'm not going to knock them too hard as a hatchery. Just need to match our expectations to what they can honestly provide. And I thought the listing was honest and not misleading, if read carefully. Many of us occassionally read and hear what we want to (me included). That is not Sand Hill's fault.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

For what it's worth, I have a black roo, a black hen and splash hen from Whitmore Farms. These are what remains from a larger chick order.

The Whitmore Farms black roo looks closer to the SOP than anything I got from Sand Hill. I would say his comb is a little short and the small county fair judge thought his tail was pinched, but I think it has improved since July. I am not a great judge, but he has all glossy black feathers, full muff and beard, pea comb, slate legs, and produces chicks with the same traits, no multicolored chicks from pairings with black and splash, just the black and blue birds you would expect.

The splash hen is not quite the right shade of splash, a little too dark.

Nice blue to blue-green egg color. Fairly productive layers.

If I wanted a bird that I could actually call an Ameraucana, I'd go there before Sand Hill. At the time both suppliers had the same price.

The EE vs. Ameraucana thing is always a tough call.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Here is the thing that always gets me about Ameraucana / EE issue.

In my flock I have two solid nut brown hens that have a little black trim here and there. The both have white legs. One has a pea comb, the other a single comb. Other than the combs, they are identical.

They came in an order of chicks that contained Buckeyes (brown, yellow legs, pea comb) and Speckled Sussex (brown with a little black trim and white spots, white legs, single comb)

So aside from the fact I will not order from this source again....what would I call these birds?

Are they bad examples of Buckeyes because of the leg color and the single comb is wrong?

Are they bad examples of Speckled Sussex because of no spots and the pea comb is wrong?

I do not know the parentage, so I will never know.

What I am not allowed to do is give them a new name.

But that is what we have done with chickens that are expected to lay blue/green eggs and are NOT conforming to the SOP for any other breed. We call them Easter Eggers.

We could have just as easily (and honestly) called them Ameraucanas, just not very good examples of Ameraucanas.

This is of course because it is easier to market an Easter Egger: the blue egg laying chicken, than a non-SOP Ameraucana (which only show people would understand).

The SOP defines a breed by a set description. If it meets the description, it belongs to the breed, no matter what crosses were used to generate the offspring.

If someone were to breed several Easter Eggers together over generations and the final offspring by chance (it could happen) looks exactly like the SOP for an accepted color variation of an Ameraucana, that chicken could certainly be entered in shows as that color variation and may do well. Is it a "purebred" Ameraucana? There really isn't any such thing, as a poultry breed is defined simply as how well it conforms to a written description of the breed.

So I find it less helpful if someone says "I have purebred Ameraucanas" than if they say "I have been trying to breed Black Ameraucanas to SOP for X years, I have shown in show Y and placed BoB...etc." I think the second flock is more likely to consistently produce birds close to the SOP description. The first flock could conceivably be two of the worst individuals from the first flock and not produce any offspring that are close to the SOP. No one lied saying they were Purebred, but they still wouldn't win any shows.

The offspring of either flock could still be a bad example of the breed, as mutations and sports will show up in any breeding program from time to time.

I guess in the end, if all you want is a blue/green egg, get an Easter Egger and call it an Easter Egger to avoid starting this discussion again.

Oh, We call the nut brown hens (and the skinny black Leghorn-like hen that was labeled a Black Ameraucana that is without a muff or beard and has a single comb but lays blue/green eggs)....We call them CHICKENS and get on with it.