And Now the Girls, Evaluating My Blue Australorp Pullets

[3KillerBs]

I need to start weeding out these 8 pullets to decide who to sell and who to keep/breed.

As I noted in the cockerel thread, a lot of the things in the Australorp standard are listed as "Medium", which isn't especially helpful to someone who doesn't have access to hands-on help from an expert in the breed.

That includes color -- since I have birds ranging from so light that I wondered if they were splash or lavender -- to fairly dark. What, exactly, is the ideal shade of blue for Blue Australorp? I think that the paler birds are pretty, but that's just my POV and even though I have no intention of showing birds from what I intend to be a production-oriented flock, I do want them to be decently representative of their breed.

The photos were taken at just shy of 12 weeks on an overcast morning.

Red:

Yellow:

Blue:

Green:

Black:

Purple:

Black/Red:

Black/yellow:

 

[Amer]

Your birds are a bit light. Ideally, blue fowl have dark edging on each feather. The ground color is secondary in importance to this, though it shouldn’t be too dark or light, ideally.
Blue and green are the best, they are even all over and have edging on each feather.
Ideally blues have lacing like Andalusians but Andalusian’s have additional columbian, lacing, and melanized genes

most likely Australorps don’t have those genes. Most blues don’t. So this edging on the feathers is more realistic to shoot for (Maria’s Jersey Giants)

 

[3KillerBs]

I decided to sell Yellow, Black, and Black/Red: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/blue-australorps-in-central-north-carolina.1504505/