Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

Illia,
He is so cool! I would have called him splash. He's got a lot of neck hackles, wow. makes him look like a real hunk

Josephine is lovely, so pretty and feminine
The silver cockerel is cool too. Love that color!


Lanae,
I didn't know Ann sold chicks. I've never seen her advertise any but I do recall someone from my area buying day olds from her a few years ago.

The blue chick that hatched tonight is Noisy! lol He has to stay in the hatcher tonight and he doesn't have any buddies. I thought I'd put a couple of week old Serama chicks in with him for company tonight but he's twice the size of those week old chicks!

 

[cashdl]

Cathy,

Are you signed up to receive her emails? Not the ones from the auction site but the ones for her hatching eggs that come from her actual website. I signed up for the alerts like two years ago and it lets me know whenever she has a bird or eggs for sale that are not on the auction site.

I have a lady coming tomorrow to buy about 10 pullets ( sorry 99707 she contacted me months ago) and I was running around to various pens and loading them all into 1 dog crate. The two month old pullets I got from Ann are almost as big as my own 3 month olds. They also seemed to feather out super fast. I know she has been working hard on eliminating all slow feathering genes from her flock. I would say it accomplished. LOL! I am keeping a few of the chicks from her. I bought the chicks hoping for wheaten and duckwing. Of the 6 chicks that died 3 were duckwing and 1 was wheaten. Of course, but I still have 2 wheaten and 1 bbr wild type. Plus I am keeping the mottled roo cause he is just amazing looking and soooo sweet.
I was going to post a pic of him but I guess I havn't uploaded it yet.

I have a couple of other mottled roo chicks that I am not keeping.


Lanae

 

[2hot2chicken]

I recently aquired a solid black bantam araucana pullet. not sure of her age but she was just starting to show some red on her comb. She has started laying for me and after her first couple smaller eggs she is now laying huge eggs for her size! her eggs are the size of my LF BR hens! Is this nomal?

Also I thought Araucanas layed blue or blue/green eggs but my girl is laying very green to greenish gray colored eggs.... Is this normal and can I change something in fer feed maybe to improve on her egg color?
I am currently feeding a high protein diet of game bird mixed with flock raiser mixed with cracked grains and wheat and some organic mash (totaling about 20-21% protein) plus they get a 5 grain scratch and some fruits and veggies.

 

[gg706]

Quote:
YES I do think I need some rumpless chickens! It was funny I was thinking about it last night we have a Manx cat (no tail), a weimaraner (docked tail) and NOW I WANT rumpless chikens! I think we have something against tails....HMMM.....HAHAHA I did raise up some chicks maybe they were rhode island reds for 4-H when I was a child. Are Araucanas pretty difficult to raise, as chicks do they die easier than other breeds? The good thing is, I am a stay at home Mom, so I would be home with them and could keep a very close eye on them. Not that it would help if they got sick but I could regulate the temp. and fill a small lid with water instead of taking the chance of them getting wet and cold dumping a large bowl. I did find a breeder that would sell me some day-old Araucanas,she also has some Wyandottes in the Blue laced red colors which I also like. She is with Chicken Scratch Poultry, I found her on a google search. Have you ever heard anything good or bad about them? I did search for chicks in my area...nothing. Is it easy to get a nice rooster shipped in if i choose the EE route? With that route I would have to do ALOT of culling to get a rumpless flock correct? I am concerned I wouldn't be able to do what I would need to do to accomplish the goal. Thank You for all your help I really appreciate it!

 

[Illia]

If you just want rumpless Easter Eggers, it's an easy route. Rumpless x Tailed = 50/50 rumpless or partially tailed and tailed. Choose only the rumpless/partially tailed ones and go from there. It's a pretty dominant gene. I offer my extra Araucana boys to people with non-Araucana flocks all the time, so they can get rumpless EE's. Much safer bird in a free ranging environment.

If you want true Araucanas and are working with EE's it is easier than working with Ameraucanas, but, a long trip. There's beard/muffs to worry of, possible wrong leg color, likely wrong egg color, and type might be off too. Also try and stay on track with a recognized color. It would be nice if there were more people out there working with recognized colors.

 

[cashdl]

Just get araucanas. That would be the easiest. They really are not harder than any other breed if you don't have any with tufts and don't want tufts. They need to be warm, dry, and clean but not tooo clean. Put apple cidar vinegar in their water, fresh water and food every day, and you will be fine.


I have not heard anything good or bad about chicken scratch poultry. If they will sell you day old chicks and they have true araucana, I say go for it and then let us know how it goes.

You will definately fall under the spell of the araucana, and a few will not be enough for you.


Lanae

 

[gg706]

Quote:
You say rumpless EE are safer in free range than true Araucanas. i do plan to free range a little....Will Araucanas fly off or something?

 

[poularde]

Beautiful birds Illia!

You are always working on the coolest projects. Crele is one of my most favorite colors. I plan on working on duckwings myself. I really do not have much to work with this year, but I will have my first breeding pen set up this week. I can hardly wait to get started on breeding this wonderful bird. Araucana mutts are all I have hatched so far. Araucanas make good mutts. One day I will have an army of Araucanas.

 

[gg706]

Quote:
Thanks for the advice, I think I will take it and put in an order. I'm just going to go for IT!!! I will keep yall posted...not that I am a judge of a good Araucana But I can tell about my experience with Chicken Scratch and post pics. Thank You for ALL of your help and advice!

 

[suzannaski]

Hi!
Illia, thanks for posting a bigger version of your beautiful pic, and the birds! I love the nearly black pullet.

So I had a weird conversation with a poultry professor at the university. I was bringing her my deceased crossbeak, which will be necropsied in Feb in her backyard poultry class. She said I shouldn't be having such bad luck with chickens (another "ameraucana" had died last month. It's in quotes because I shouldn't have trusted the seller). Then she asked why I bothered with Araucanas

and I patiently listed off all their great traits, and then I said I didn't like/trust hatcheries. Y'know, ethics 'n' stuff.
So she said I should visit a local hatchery, and I asked if there was really one local or even in MA, because I only knew of the ones in the midwest.
I thought she meant local breeders, but she really meant hatcheries.
So now I'm wondering if she knows about the shenanigans with "araucanas" in hatcheries.
The conversation was kinda frustrating, and it was cold out, so I figured I'd follow up with her in an email.
Needless to say, she didn't sway me in the least. I am still 100% believer in buying only from breeders who know what they are talking about. (which excludes ebay, in case you were wondering).

Smoothmule- I desperately want to buy some of your eggs, but the reality is that it's winter here, so I will sadly wait until April. So sorry about your dead chick. Those darn lethal tufts. Oh, and I love the artist names of your roosters. I have yet to name my youngest mutt rooster. Right now he's just "one of the Hippy Chicks batch".