Araucana thread anyone?

[josh44]

There is a black hen or two being bred in for better tuffs and all they produce are mottled birds and blacks, never blues or splashes.
Theyve never produced a blue birds through the generations.
Just blacks or mottled, but blacks are either pure black or F1crosses for color and fuller tuffs. The black hens father was mottled and have the mottled gene and are being bred back to their mottled dad. Then breed those offspring back to mottled birds again, to make better mottleing. So far color is going strong

Just need to get males wings to get darker, they have too much white especially with age.

 

[smoothmule]

Josh
That one looks mottled but the others had far too much white for mottled if you go by the standard I think. Your photo's are really grainy, do you have a regular camera or are those phone pics?

I put a couple of my white chicks on Skyblueeggs auction if anyone is looking for whites.
http://www.showbirdauction.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.pl

 

[Rumbull]

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Those are some great looking chicks!!!

 

[smoothmule]

Thanks Rumbull,
They are nice enough I'll just put them out to grow this winter if they don't sell. I've sold several this summer that I wished I'd kept but I promised myself to "share with others" so I have tried to get more breeders started. I had such an awful time trying to get started. It took blood, sweat and tears to gather the flock I have today.

 

[Rumbull]

I thought I was done incubating for the year and then I joined the Araucana Club and read Cathy Brunson's book.

I know it has been said before but if you want to get improvement, you have to hatch alot of chicks and cull alot of chicks. It was easy for me to get improvement when starting with a tailed tufted hen and clean faced (so I thought) rumpless roo. My very first chick to hatch is tufted and rumpless. So there was immediate improvement but she has the same salmon breast as her mother. Since I live in the city and can't have multiple breeding pens, I have decided on BBS colors. What I really need is a blue rumpless and tufted pullet without a salmon breast for next spring's breeding. I have not hatched one yet, thus more eggs in the incubator. I have only one hen and one roo but it is amazing the difference between the chicks that they have sired!

 

[Stacykins]

So I managed to sell a few of my surplus Araucanas locally, to a couple who definitely knew they were the real deal and appreciated the breed! I had to thin the flock a bit so my coop wouldn't be overcroweded for winter. And now it won't be, yay! Anyway, I'd listed two pairs of araucanas, one with a cleanfaced/rumpless cockerel and a tufted/tailed pullet, the other pair with a rumpless/tufted cockerel and a tailed/cleanfaced pullet. Glad I wasn't asked to break up the pairs (I would have kept the pullets, but I knew there'd be no way to sell the cockerels without them). So the couple will have a nice little starter flock of Araucanas!

 

[cashdl]

Stacy,

That is typically what I try to do also. Otherwise I would be forced to eat some really nice roos that I know would be a great start to someone elses project. I have a couple right now that are rumpless and double tufted, but I don't really have pullets that I want to get rid of.

My birchen show roo I want to sell, but I figure someone will want a hen to go with him. He is a wonderful bird at the shows, such a gentleman. At home he is a handful. I just don't want to let go of anymore of my pullets. I have finally gotten down to what I want to keep as far as the pullets go.

Next week Megans hubby is coming to get her blue breeding group and it will be nice to have a free pen without building another one. Course it wont be free for long, because I want to move my duckwings into it once the roo is old enough. I hope he turns out as nice as I think he is going to. Every day his tufts get prettier and more perfect. I can't wait.

I want to take pics in the next couple of days since we are going to have some sun again. I will post and see what you all think.

Lanae

 

[cackleberrycoop]

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[cackleberrycoop]

Oh yeah, congratulations on your promising roo. I really do look forward to seeing photos of him. It's exciting that you're making progress on your breeding goals - it's such a tough start with this breed but you certainly stuck it out and now you are gifting all of us with the fruit of your labors.

 

[cashdl]

Megan,

I was looking at your boy the other day and his tufts are growing back in. His girls have totally wrecked havoc on them. I may need to take a pic of them just to prove he has them. LOL! Fortunately everyone is coming out of their molt also. The hen that was sitting on eggs didn't hatch any, so I finally took them away. None of them are laying right now anyway. The weather has been weird here and its affecting them. One day raining, the next warm and humid. Yesterday we got nearly two inches of rain, and today the sky was blue and it was warm. Poor birds don't know what to think.


Lanae