Araucana thread anyone?

[coberdor]

Here are some recent pics of my girls and young roos. These are where the test eggs are coming from. I'm all filled up with test egg orders. I may have more possible in a couple of weeks.

My roo from Smoothmule is double tufted, splash, though I think like Illia said that it is a washed out blue cuckoo, because he has produced 4 cuckoo hens for me and 3 splash double tufed roos. The roos too are probably a washed out cuckoo.

Nice lacing on this hen. She was a hatch from hinkjc.






This little hen, also from Hinkjc is almost lavender.

 

[poularde]

Nice little assortment. Curious to see what colors come from them. Thanks so much for doing the test eggs. Very generous. Can hardly wait.

 

[shanshan51]

Well, looks like one eBay seller who got some flack for selling mutts under the Araucana name is up to some new tricks. You know how it was pointed out that there with no photos of tufted birds (despite claims of having them) and lots of pics of muffed and bearded EEs, and one rumpless bird? Look at the very last picture. It is tiny, and very nice compared to the others. Suspicious? I knew I'd seen it elsewhere. It was stolen from this website, on their Araucana page. So that eBay seller, to better scam others, just did a quick google search, saved the best pic (and didn't even blow it up to its proper size

), and used it on their eBay listing.

I hate art theft, it just burns me up. I emailed the website owner pointing it out. If it were my picture, I'd be on the warpath!

I bought eggs from them and only 8 out of 32 hatched. None tufted. 3 with tails. And colors are all over the board. One had a weird illness and died, another some joint probs and died. They are not a good seller.

 

[syble]

This image is listed in with the other araucana info pages, not even sure how/where i grabbed it, but what caught my interest is the egg in the middle, decent mint blue color, but i love the spots! how would one go about getting that? I do notice my hens on occasion dust with white, or green, but not to that look. whats the chances it could be stabilized?

Its not quite there yet, but one of my girls must have known i was coveting other eggs lol

 

[Illia]

So, I'm expecting to get some Araucana eggs in the mail, finally new blood

This will actually be my first shot at receiving shipped Araucana eggs. Wish me luck! I hope to at least get a couple duckwings out of the hatch, tufted or not.

In the mean time I also hope to collect a decent handful of my own Araucana eggs to join in. I'm certainly going to need to mark the eggs AND chicks at some point for recognition.

Got three girls laying, but two have been exposed to a non-Araucana recently so by now I'm hoping that's diluted out. If not, I'll still get some neat crested/muffed/rumpless EE's out of them.


ETA - Nice hens, nice pics! I saw those before posting this and thought wow, nice hens, and beautiful buff/wheaten colored looking gal, then realized "oh, those are the parents to my eggs!"

 

[Stacykins]

This image is listed in with the other araucana info pages, not even sure how/where i grabbed it, but what caught my interest is the egg in the middle, decent mint blue color, but i love the spots! how would one go about getting that? I do notice my hens on occasion dust with white, or green, but not to that look. whats the chances it could be stabilized?

I had to laugh a bit, I have the same plates and bowls with the blue rings! Not like they're that rare, since they are sold at walmart, but hey, fun little thing I noticed!

 

[cashdl]

I just sold yesterdays hatch of blue eggers. Yeah me. I put them on craigslist for $5.00 each and a couple came out today and offered me $80.00 for all 20. I of course took it. They said that they want to know when I have more. They want lots of blue eggs at their house. I had kept the shells that the chicks hatched out of so I could show them the eggs.

I didn't get any tufts out of that bunch. Lots of rumpless EE looking chicks and several tailed bearded, crested and muffed. Should make for a bunch of goofy looking chickens at their house.


Lanae

 

[Illia]

Awesome. What colors are you using, parent-wise?

 

[smoothmule]

There are alot of people who don't know what a real Aracauna is. I spent the day of the Stockton poultry show manning the Araucana Club booth. I had pictures of real Araucana, and several copies of the newsletter with Araucana pictures displayed. I had label cards put on the show cages identifying the Araucanas in the cages for all to see.

That being said, I heard well over 30 people say, "oh Araucana, we have some of those at home", or " We used to have Araucana but our feed store stopped carrying them, so I couldn't get them last year". Now there were those who stopped by to learn about the Araucana, but most people were incapable of looking at a real Araucana and an Easter Egger side by side and being able to tell the difference. Most people don't really care. A Chicken is a chicken is a chicken. All they know is Araucana lay blue eggs, so every chicken that lays a blue egg is an araucana. Makes perfect sense if you are not interested in breeding or showing chickens, you just want the blue eggs.

Now for those that are truly interested in getting the real Araucana, they may buy the mislabeled hatching eggs, but once they determine that they have been had, they will have learned a valuable lesson hopefully. In order to succeed at anything, you need to do your homework. When I first got what I thought was Araucana, I didn't care what they looked like, I just wanted the blue eggs. It was only after one of my hens laid a brown egg that I thought something may be wrong. I started doing research and became hooked on this funny dorky little chicken. I think most people are like I was back then. I wasn't in love with the Araucana per se. It was the blue eggs I wanted. Now I want it all. Many people still wont care as long as they are getting chickens that lay blue eggs.

We can't stress about what everyone else is selling especially since this person obviously doesn't care that they are being misleading. Maybe they do have tufted chickens as they say. Maybe their chickens are camera shy and it was just easier to steal a photo of someone elses. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to stop them from selling their mutts. We can just be there if someone tells us their tale of woe about buying what they thought were araucana, and help them get some real araucana.

The weird thing is sometimes I am more angry at the people who allow themselves to be mislead than I am at the ones doing the misleading. I didn't originally go specifically looking for araucana, I was looking for blue egg chickens. The lady I got my birds from told me where she had gotten them and I went to where she said to go an bought what she said to buy, in order to get more blue egg layers. Simple enough. But there are those people who decide one day that they want real araucana chickens and then go to the feed store or buy them from a hatchery without, I don't know, looking online to see if there are pictures of them from different sources, maybe looking for a club website.

Maybe my thinking is wrong, but I am getting tired of beating a dead horse. People say they have Araucana when they see me at the shows. Fine. What do I care. They are happy with them and I am happy for them. Its those few people that are really interested in the real thing, that I am there for. They are the ones who have the questions for me. The others with the fake araucana, I am happy to talk chicken with them, and how pretty their chickens blue eggs are. It is no big deal, then they go home, after seeing a bunch of cool chickens and they still are happy with their birds they only want eggs from anyway. Why burst their bubble or make them feel like they have less of a bird. A chicken is a chicken to them.

Lanae

My issue is not with people who just don't know. It's hard when the hatcheries keep calling their EE's "Araucana/Easter Egger/Ameraucana as though they were interchangeable. That's only frustrating. What actually irritates, is when you have someone who will argue with you that you don't know what you're talking about and despite sending them to the ACA website and other sites that tell the history and type of the Araucana, they are determined that they have Araucana's and that muffs and beards and tufts are all the same. Some people are determined to argue though so it's pointless. Still, I do try to educate and I mostly get good responses

 

[Rumbull]

I am jealous. Everyone has eggs and chicks starting for the new year. Nothing going on here at our house. The pullets are around 23 weeks old so I am hoping to find a surprise some day soon. Can't wait to start the next generation!