Araucana thread anyone?

[Illia]

Pyle refers to a few things, but most often refers to the "Red Pyle"

Red Pyle is duckwing with white, usually dominant white.

Lemon Pyle is buff columbian with blue or splash. - Usually found on Brahmas.




Blue eggs - No definite experience on it yet, but to me it is mainly about trial and error. Testing. Breeding different parents together, keep note of the offspring's' egg color, and see who does and doesn't pass on the green. Don't keep green laying parents though unless you NEED something else they have. If they continue passing on 100% green offspring, you're in for a trip.

I'd say treat it as an issue like clean faced vs muffs/beard. Get rid of the green egg layers, test the blue egg layers for if they pass on green. If they do, change the parentage to see which parent or if both continue passing it.

 

[suzannaski]

Okay, I have an idea of what they look like now.
I wonder how they got to be called pyle....
That's very logical about the breeding for egg color.
What about the, um, overstock? I'm a wussy. I tend to rehome extra roos.
Or is there enough demand for Araucanas that I can sell the extra chicks?

I forgot to mention, Illia, you have beautiful birds!

 

[Illia]

Thanks.

They're in a terrible state right now though honestly - Feather quality, I mean. I think it's their diet this summer.



As for overstock. . . . Roosters you can just sell or eat or something. (or feed to your dogs if you have any) I usually only keep the boys I am pretty sure don't have solid green egg genes, and I rely far more on the aesthetics and personality of the male than the egg color genes. If he does pass on green though, get rid of him. A back-up second rooster is always a necessity.

As for offspring roos' - They're for eating unless you find a specimen you know you'll need.


Females - That's where the trick is. Try and keep only the ones you want, visually and personality wise, but keep at least two of each breeding. Once they lay their first egg or two, that's the deciding factor of keep vs cull. At least by then you'll know they'll sell well. Laying Araucana hens out here sell FAST. And for a good price.


So, in general, this does require a lot of chickens, but you can still do it on a small scale too. Let's say you have two boys, four girls. Switch the girls around through each batch, and in each batch keep only one to three girls.

Of course, everyone has a different way of doing it, a different opinion. Right now I've got two boys, and those are the two deciding males on who to continue keeping. For my first/current batch, one male is covering 3 girls. The second male is covering 1 male. Then, I'll switch to 1 girl and 3 girls the other way around. Each girl I'll see the offspring of each male, and thus I'll be able to tell which male or which female has what issues or good traits.

When the offspring of the first and second batch grow up and I find a good male from the same breeding of a female's batch who lays a good egg, I keep that male. I'll also keep some females of an unrelated breeding (say, different dad or both dad and mom) who have good egg too, hopefully body, and keep them. By the time I'll also hopefully have some babies from someone else's flock to introduce, too.



. . . I neeeeed new blood, but the fam wants, if anything, more flock reduction right now. Personally I think a reduction from 40+ hens to 20 hens is enough. I've only got so many girls (2-4 per breed), and some of my important breeds like Marans have ONE male to choose from. (the other, the better, died. I was depressed for some time) - Which points back to always have a backup male

I know to some people a lot of chickens sounds like a lot, but I like quality breeding and trying out many specimens as parents to see who's got what, as well as keeping a good diverse genepool. 1-2 roosters for 2-4 hens is not enough.

 

[Chiko]

Any one have any good pictures of their birds?

 

[zekii]

I guess I am partial to the duckwing colors ....

Thanks for your help !!!
Clint



Quote:
No idea, but he is pretty.

Colors accepted by the APA for araucanas are Black, Black Breasted Red, Golden Duckwing, Silver Duckwing, and White, for both large fowl and bantam sized.

The American Bantam Association accepts Black, Black Breasted Red, Blue, Buff, Silver, and White, but are limited to bantam sized since that is that the organization specializes in.

That doesn't mean they don't come in other colors! I adore the little cuckoo girl I got from some hatching eggs, she is tufted and rumpless, just a non standard color.

 

[ruthless]

Quote:
Go back to page one of this thread and look at all the pictures all the way thru the thread. There are a lot of them. If you read also, you will learn a lot about Araucanas and breeding them.

 

[Quirky]

Thank you, Illia, for the solid gold breeding advice. I find your way of explaining things very accessible.

Another good source of culling advice comes from the ALBC website:

http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/ALBCchicken_assessment-3.pdf

 

[suzannaski]

I agree with Quirky- Illia's post should be a sticky somewhere.
I know I'm cutting & pasting it into my farm notes for future reference. That link, too!

Oh, and at the vet's office yesterday, lo & behold, they had a poster of chickens with a red pyle bantam something-or-other!

 

[Quirky]

Sue, color identification is one good reason to have the Standard of Perfection. I'm less than thrilled with it as a resource overall (not a comment on it's quality necessarily), but the illustrations are nice.

 

[Quirky]

Uncle!!!

I am going to look into getting an incubator. You people are terrible enablers

Soooo, rather than asking general incubation questions on the main board, I'd love it if you experienced folks would post your ideal incubator set-up for hatching Araucanas. Our birds are odd little creatures, so I want to cater to what they need right away. In other words, allow me to benefit from you trial-and-error. C'mon, it's for the good of the breed

I'm a glutton for information! Thanks in advance.