Araucana thread anyone?

[syble]

why not do a couple hatches with the brown egg hens, then a couple hatches with the muffed ones. if i remember right, the muffs are dominant, so if they have the gene it will show so once you get non muffed babies, no worries about surprised muffs

 

[cashdl]

Megan, could you email me a copy of the blue egg clucker. I didn't get one for some reason. [email protected]

Lanae

 

[smoothmule]

Megan,
They shouldn't have muffs in the first place so breeding it out shouldn't be something you should have to work on. I think I would be finding more bantam hens. They could have been part of a project, nothing wrong with that unless you're selling the first generations of the project as purebred. That's when you're more likely to have those things pop out.

I guess you could breed all the hens this year and keep all the pullets. Next spring (or this fall if the faults are huge like muffs or they begin laying brown eggs etc), go over each pullet for faults including egg color and type then cull out the original hens and the pullets that don't make the cut and breed only those pullets without these faults back to the rooster. You may not have many hens but if you get even 2 or 3 good pullets, it will not be such a set back. We all have issues in this breed to work on. I've had my own problems to have to decide what to about it. Some faults are more serious and more difficult to overcome so you just need to determine whether to hold on to what you have (you know what you're working with now) or start again with a potential for more surprises.

The more chicks you hatch from your brown egg layers and the others with faults, the better chance for getting some chicks that are better than those hens but there is always a potential for more later on so you have to decide if you're willing to keep them all for a few generations or are you wanting to raise chicks to sell. I'm not entirely confident about the brown eggs, meaning I don't know how hard it will be to breed it out. If it's recessive, I think you would need to make sure to keep track of any chicks from those lines and never mate down the road. I'm thinking that the brown egg gene could be there for multiple generations just setting there waiting for a mate to also carry that gene and produce more brown egg layers putting you back to square one. Also, if you sell any that may carry this gene to other breeders, and their birds have always laid nothing but blue eggs but carry the gene for brown eggs, they may also have offspring that lay brown eggs and say things about you that you're saying about the breeder you got them from. It's a tough choice whether to continue to keep the gene in the breed or stop it in it's tracks so there's no further damages.

Stuff happens and I've had chicks that had obvious faults that I have culled that will never be used in anyones breeding program (either eaten or given to my friend who loves pretty chickens and roosters). I'm pretty sure that will never end but I also feel as long as I do the best I can to breed the good in and the bad out, I'll be slowly improving my flock and once I have a number of good (maybe not faultless) Araucana's, I'll stop buying from others and work on a line I can call my own. Lot of stuff to think about and I worry all the time too.

Cathy

 

[smoothmule]

Lanae,
The Blue Egg Clucker is also there to copy at the Araucana Club forum too.
Cathy

 

[wilds of pa]

First day to free range, Lf lavender araucana pen #2. they seem to like it.. little skittish though

Pen #2 consists of:
1 double tufted lav roo with tail(roo has a lil bit of silver leakage) and a bunch of completely rumpless clean faced lav hens

Pen #1 wouldn't come out yesterday, will try them again tomorrow

Pen #1 consists of
2 double tufted Lav rumpless roo's(fully lavender no leakage) and a bunch of completely rumpless clean faced lav hens..pic's coming soon..

set eight eggs from all of our colors, got 7 out so far, couple whites, black, lav and wild..more hatches to come, just need brooder space at the moment..pics coming today of the lil hatch. looks like all are rumpless to..will check for tufts when moving

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
I get the paper version Lanae, otherwise I would have happily e-mailed you a copy. Do you have any clean faced LF hens for sale at present?

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
Boy you've got some nice type going on there! Looking good out there, wilds of pa. Can't wait for chick photos.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

All right, so I set them all free. No more bantam Araucana breeding pens around here. Thank you Smooth Mule and Syble; it really did help me look at the situation clearly to hear you both spelling out the challenges of trying to work with what I've got. The only reason I was even contemplating breeding with them is because I had spent SO MUCH MONEY on them as chicks, but wishing they were laying blue eggs simply isn't going to make the brown egg problem go away and I really don't want to sell chicks to people with the apology that "they will probably lay green eggs, or brown eggs and will most likely pass on the brown egg gene to subsequent generations.... have fun." I just needed to let go.

 

[smoothmule]

Megan,
I'm sorry, it would still work out to work with what you have but when you have such a small breeding group, it's just so hard to to work on them the way you would need to. The breeder you got them from may have had no clue either. If they're crossing hens and roosters that are from blue eggs themselves, they would have no reason to know they are producing brown egg layers. If they would try some different matings, they may find they get better results. Have you contacted the breeder? I would want to know if I was producing some that lay brown eggs.

Cathy

edited: I hate to hear your good rooster isn't being used, could you maybe find just one good hen for him? A pair might just get you started off right.

 

[smoothmule]

Is this chick Blue? I was thinking the blue chicks I've seen looked almost black with blue under fluff on the down. It's "silver" Not more than 12 hours out of the shell so it's still wet. Cool pewter silver color though, especially wet and in the sun.....shines like a dime