Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

cmsdvm,
Thanks for that info. I have seen my weird barred chicks that turn blue get lacing later. Some of my softer, paler blues don't seem to get the lacing.

Here is one of my blue hens, she has the most lacing of any of my blues.




Here is one of my blue Serama hens, I wouldn't mind some of my Araucana hens being this type of laced blue but it's still not as impressive as the Andulasian Blue

 

[Illia]

If you want to improve the lacing you oughtta get whatever that hen is hiding out of her. See the leakage near her ears? She's likely hiding something in there, such as duckwing, bred out a few times, thus allowing for just a little leakage to show in the neck. Removing that will help improve the lacing.

Another thing that may help though is breeding IN a very poorly colored duckwing/BBR male with spots on his breast or mimic-lacing on his breast. I've seen several Araucanas like that, and if you can grab the genes that cause it but not the duckwing, about 2 generations later, you might pull off some nice lacing.

 

[smoothmule]

Illia,
I really haven't even worked with blue, I just get them incidentally when I breed Joker and my 3 blue hens are in the white pen now. I've gotten some pretty nice blue chicks and mostly passed them on to blue breeders. Both of my white roosters have the blue gene so I still get blue chicks a lot. I know I'll just keep getting the blues. They may also have duckwing pattern in there when they are sired by Joker though so what color rooster would those all blue hens need to be bred to, to reduce the red and add in more lacing?

I'm planning to keep this last blue chick for sure, just to see how it matures. It confuses me a bit that I can breed these 3 blue hens to the white hens that have a blue parent and not get a splash chick yet. How about breeding them to my young rooster, Obsidian? I think it's birchen black. He has just a little silver leakage and it seems less than it was a couple of months back. Would that improve the blue and lacing?

Thanks

 

[cashdl]

I am back and have missed you all. I only lost one chicken while I was on vacation, so far. I am headed out to take stock of everyone in a minute. I set up my new incubators last night. I like them I think. LOL! I am not sure what I was expecting, maybe a magical box that said TA DA! as it slipped out of the packing boxs. It didn't help that my husband was standing there helping me unpack. I know he was expecting some slick shiny contraption, but I new I wanted wood construction. I also know for certain that if I outgrow these, I can use the design to make new ones identical which is what I was hoping for. I have to see something to replicate it. So I am happy that way. They are a little noisy but its just the fan motors. It doesn't bother me but my husband who doesn't want them in the house is feeling cranky. Doesn't help that I have 8 baby chickens of various ages in my office chirping away.

Just talked to Mr. Dickey and he said that the incubators are stackable. How cool is that. He also keeps his outside in a shop building running year round as long as they don't get below freezing, so if need be I can do the same. I will try to get pics today. I have about 60 eggs in there incubating away. So exciting.

So 3 baby chicks hatched out of my duckwing pen this weekend. 1 is black, 1 is yellow and black and one is wheaten. The wheaten one is pure yellow except for a tiny spot on its back of brown. YIPPEE! My other wheaten one died before I went on vacation so I have been wondering if I was going to get any or not out of this pen. Now that I am back I can start moving chickens into the new pens I built before I left and get serious about who is going to make babies with whom.

Lanae

 

[featherz]

Just hatched out for NYD a couple of 'pure' araucanas.. at what age can you tell if they will be tufted? one of the little ones has 'poofs' near the ears, but not big enough to say for sure and hard to get a picture of. And what color is this one going to be? The other 'rumpless' one is black (not shown LOL).

 

[Illia]

A tufted chick is visible at birth. Yours is clean-faced. Right now it looks like a blue-gold duckwing.

Smoothmule - The hen needs a SOLID black blue or splash bird to improve the blue, but lacing improvement is never a gaurantee. As for a birchen type, no, you're likely just throwing in more leakage.

Again I'm no laced blue expert but the first thing needed done with most blues is to breed out leakage. That, or breed in a full duckwing with apparent lacing or spangling on most of his breast. Then breed the duckwing out, but keep what laced appearance in the blue plumage you can. I could be wrong though, but one thing is certain - Breed leakage out. A big reason blues aren't APA / LF accepted is because there's very few people out there breeding long-time blues with no serious faults.

 

[cmsdvm]

I think you need a good solid black for that pretty blue girl. Breeding blues is the ONE time a black with a purple sheen may work better for you than a correct green sheen. You are breeding LF- correct? Too bad. I will have lots of good black bantams this year.
By the way, if anyone is interested, I may consider selling some of my large fowl tufted whites- one of which was just Ch. Large Fowl at our State Fair. I find that, with the arthritis in my thumbs, I have a hard time handling the large fowl. I love their big blue eggs, and find it easier to win in AOSB than AOCCL, but my thumbs want me to be a strictly bantam breeder.

 

[featherz]

Just hatched out for NYD a couple of 'pure' araucanas.. at what age can you tell if they will be tufted? one of the little ones has 'poofs' near the ears, but not big enough to say for sure and hard to get a picture of. And what color is this one going to be? The other 'rumpless' one is black (not shown LOL).

A tufted chick is visible at birth. Yours is clean-faced. Right now it looks like a blue-gold duckwing.

Smoothmule - The hen needs a SOLID black blue or splash bird to improve the blue, but lacing improvement is never a gaurantee. As for a birchen type, no, you're likely just throwing in more leakage.

Again I'm no laced blue expert but the first thing needed done with most blues is to breed out leakage. That, or breed in a full duckwing with apparent lacing or spangling on most of his breast. Then breed the duckwing out, but keep what laced appearance in the blue plumage you can. I could be wrong though, but one thing is certain - Breed leakage out. A big reason blues aren't APA / LF accepted is because there's very few people out there breeding long-time blues with no serious faults.

Ah well, that's OK. S/he is still pretty durn cute. I've decided I'm keeping them both for now - maybe one will turn out as a pullet. =)

 

[Illia]

I think you need a good solid black for that pretty blue girl. Breeding blues is the ONE time a black with a purple sheen may work better for you than a correct green sheen. You are breeding LF- correct? Too bad. I will have lots of good black bantams this year.
By the way, if anyone is interested, I may consider selling some of my large fowl tufted whites- one of which was just Ch. Large Fowl at our State Fair. I find that, with the arthritis in my thumbs, I have a hard time handling the large fowl. I love their big blue eggs, and find it easier to win in AOSB than AOCCL, but my thumbs want me to be a strictly bantam breeder.

You have LF? Since when?!

I'd love to see photos of your LF Whites if you have any.

 

[sega]

10 new little Araucana's. Two of them have Double Tuffs.