Araucana thread anyone?

[shanshan51]

The possible white pullet is too little. I have 4 white chicks and I figure at least one has to be a pullet. LOL! They are 3 weeks old.


I think I am going to wait till all the whites get about 3 to 4 months and then sell them as a starter flock depending on what gender they all turn out to be.

You could always hang on to him for a little and then sell all the cuckoos together as a breeding set and concentrate on the 3 colors you want to work with.


Here are some new photos I took of my birds.

The first two are of Marco Polo one of my mottled roos, just to show how much they can change as they mature.

two months

five months and what a difference.

This is what happens when a bird is hen pecked.

Before After

This is my wheaten pens and the chicks I am getting

Phoenix Nierti Ginger Tufted Pullet



Lanae

I think we should totally trade mine for your BBR roo just a thought

 

[cashdl]

He is pretty isn't he. He is my boy. I just love him. It looks like I might have a couple of tufted wheaten roos and I think I am only going to be keeping 1 so I will have some available in the next couple of months.

Lanae

 

[shanshan51]

The one BBR I have hatched has an extra toe and quite small. Hoping it will live and be a roo despite having a few stray tail feathers. High hopes for the little buggar.

 

[sega]

2 questions:

1. I am wondering what some of you guys fertility/hatch rates are for Araucana eggs shipped to you through the US Mail?

2. What are the fertility/hatch rates for your own Araucana Eggs that you hatch out?

I am wanting to know this because I ship eggs though the mail and some of the buyers get very good hatch rates while some report they are not getting very good hatch rates.

Just wondering.....

 

[smoothmule]

Sega,
The eggs I've shipped have varied from 0 hatch rate to 5 of 6 eggs and everything between. There are so many variables that it's impossible to guarantee even a single chick. It's risky but sometimes the best way to go for some people. In my opinion, it's generally better to start with adults or even started chicks and build your own flock but in the past years, good quality or even cull quality with tufts were so hard to come by that many people that have contacted me to buy had plenty of clean faced but could not seem to procure a tufted individual. I know those first years here, I wouldn't have parted with a tufted anything for any amount. I have sold several tufted in the last 2 years and hope to hatch enough to share this year but it will be a few months before the chicks hatching now will be old enough to evaluate. I never planned to ever sell hatching eggs, I wanted to hatch them all for myself to sell started chicks and build my flock but Wow when they decide to take off laying, they really go to town and I could not keep up. It still makes me uncomfortable to sell hatching eggs knowing the chances for great hatches are not that good but I hope, along with everyone who has bought from me, that they will have super success and lots of tufts.

 

[cmsdvm]

I don't ship araucana hatching eggs. They just don't do well. I ship my Polish all over and they are fine. I never had any luck shipping serama eggs either. I think this year I'll ship a box of chicks if anyone contacts me wanting bantam araucanas and see how they do if shipped express.

 

[smoothmule]

I should add that I always send extra's to cover the expected losses and the average percent of egg's hatched was about 20%. When you consider you might get even 3 chicks when buying a dozen (and that usually means 18 to 24 eggs when I have the extra) for an average of $25 plus $18 for shipping for a dozen eggs, even one good chick is worth that.

It's so easy to sort out the better chicks the day they hatch that I prefer not to ever sell day old chicks. Even if you sent a dozen nice chicks, there is a potential that someone is going to accuse you of picking through them before sending them so I prefer to sell older, started chicks. That way, they can usually be sexed and it's "their" choice of chick, not mine. I actually had someone question me about whether I was sorting my eggs for the tufted ones, lol. I Wish! If I could predict which of these eggs held the prize I would be tickled pink, lol. She later apologized but I don't think she realized her hatch rates from shipped eggs was very good and thinking that she should have been guaranteed tufts was unbelievable to me. At that time, I had only hatched a single tufted chick in 3 months and people buying hatching eggs from me were getting all sorts of tufted chicks. I think she honestly thought I sold her non tufted intentionally. She knew some of the others who had bought eggs for me so I think it did sink in that I wasn't withholding somehow, lol. That was when she apologized.

I "try" not to sell hatching eggs but rather than waste them if I can't incubate them all, I would rather sell them and hope they hatch for someone else. I Love the reactions when they hatch their first or 20th Araucana from my hatching eggs, It's as much fun as hatching my own.

At this moment, I have 7 of 12 eggs pipped and some of the non-pipped are cheeping so I'm hoping for a good hatch of nice blacks, blues, chipmunk and chocolate chicks.

 

[smoothmule]

Lanae,
That mottled cockerel is nice for any color It's interesting to me that he started out with so much white then it ended up just white tips. I'd like to know why there is so much difference in mottling. My Serama's mottling is so different, it can start out with a couple white tips then end up nearly all white when they mature and it's not tips always, although some of mine have black feathers tipped in white, many will moult and the whole feather comes in all white shaft to tip.

I wonder now, looking at your cockerel, if my young roo Obi carries a mottling gene or if it's really silver leakage. I need to pull one of his feathers with the white tip and take a picture for you to compare. His momma has to be my hen India. She has the same tiny bit of white at the tip of some of her feathers, the only hen like that. Once I have enough chicks out of her and CJ for my chocolate project, I plan to breed her to Obi and see if there isn't more "mottling" or silver that shows. I guess they could just be highly melanised birchens but they don't strike me as that. Something I noticed that is different about Obi and India is that they have almost a clear yellow shank, no willow, slate or black with yellow soles while all of the other "blacks" in that pen have black legs with yellow soles. I hadn't really thought about that until now, when I noticed that your mottled cockerel had yellow legs.

 

[cashdl]

I was feeling pretty proud of my hatch rates because several people had hatched 8 and 10 chicks with many of them being tufted, then I just got an email and only 1 chick hatched and it was cleanfaced. UGH!

The thing to remember, even though we always want to think well of people. We live in a society that blames everyone else for their problems and failures. The same is true of hatching araucana. Here personally I am getting 75% to 95% hatch rates and these are the exact same pens I hatch my own chicks out of every week. So I know fertility is good even great. Now here are several things that have a direct effect on hatchability.


1) shipping old eggs. I ship eggs no more than 4 days old. The older ones I keep for myself.

2) traveling by air in the mail, and just general rough handeling by the postal service.

3) lack of fertility. I set eggs every week from the same pens I am shipping out eggs from so I know immediately if there is an issue and if it is with a hen or a roo.

4) the incubation techniques of the end user. I cannot be responsible for how anyone else but myself hatches eggs. I used to send a hatching chart on how I personally hatch eggs with each order. I need to start doing that again. I can only recommend how I hatch but it is up to each person how they do it and people should take responsibility for it.

5) packaging. I use Cotton Batting in the box first ( thank you for the tip Martin Walkowe) then I wrap each egg in bubble wrap and set it in the cotton battin pointy end down. Once all the eggs are in I carefully pack the box with more cotton batting untill it is really full. I tape the box shut and put my shipping label on the top. I do not write fragile or hatching eggs. I am paranoid that those words are a trigger for some postal butt head to drop kick my box because they hate their job.

It usually costs me $ 17.60 for freight on a large priority box which includes the extra fee for $100.00 insurance. I figure extra incentive for them to deliver the eggs in a timely fashion and in good shape.

The bubble wrap is about $3.00 per box of eggs, the cotton batting is about $3.00 per box. I use scotch tape to secure the bubble wrap around the eggs and packing tape to close the box well. I probably spend $2.00 box for tape. Not counting my time I am spending easily $25.00 on shipping a dozen eggs plus extras. I charge $17.00 for freight and $25.00 for the eggs. It takes me a good 1/2 hr to 45 minutes to wrap the eggs and get the box ready to go, then I drive to town and usually have to park a couple of blocks away cause our post office parking is ridiculously small. I make sure I am there by 10:00 a.m. so the eggs can make the first truck.

My point being. I do the best I can, and that is all any egg customer can expect, but I do get those who still think its my fault. What are ya gonna do? Been there done that.

When I first started hatching eggs, I was doing it in a not well built homemade styrofoam incubator. My first eggs I ordered were araucana. Imagine my surprise and displeasure after spending alot of money, only 1 hatched and died, and 3 others out of 9 developed. I was mad as a wet hen. It took me actually hatching my own araucana eggs and lots of trial and error before I could accept that it was totally my fault and not the person I bought them from.

So now if people get a bad hatch, I want them to crack the eggs and tell me how many developed. I know my fertility is good. When my eggs arrive I want to know if any are cracked, so I know that my packaging is good. I know my birds are healthy and have a great diet. I know I shipped fresh eggs. Those are things I can control.

The customer above that had a bad hatch, should not have and I do not believe that it is their hatching methods. In those instances I will ship a new order and split the cost with them, because it must be shipping. My eggs from the same pens hatched at the same time no problems.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

Lanae,
That mottled cockerel is nice for any color It's interesting to me that he started out with so much white then it ended up just white tips. I'd like to know why there is so much difference in mottling. My Serama's mottling is so different, it can start out with a couple white tips then end up nearly all white when they mature and it's not tips always, although some of mine have black feathers tipped in white, many will moult and the whole feather comes in all white shaft to tip.

I wonder now, looking at your cockerel, if my young roo Obi carries a mottling gene or if it's really silver leakage. I need to pull one of his feathers with the white tip and take a picture for you to compare. His momma has to be my hen India. She has the same tiny bit of white at the tip of some of her feathers, the only hen like that. Once I have enough chicks out of her and CJ for my chocolate project, I plan to breed her to Obi and see if there isn't more "mottling" or silver that shows. I guess they could just be highly melanised birchens but they don't strike me as that. Something I noticed that is different about Obi and India is that they have almost a clear yellow shank, no willow, slate or black with yellow soles while all of the other "blacks" in that pen have black legs with yellow soles. I hadn't really thought about that until now, when I noticed that your mottled cockerel had yellow legs.

Hi Cathy,

My other mottleds have black legs that have yellow spots or leakage. It has something to do with the mottling. Do your mottled Seramas have solid legs. What I have read in the Classroom forum is that mottling is just the white tip at the end of a black feather or a feather with a black edge and then the white tip. The whole feather shouldn't be white. That was the question I was having on my red spotty roo. He has some solid white feathers but the mottled feathers are red with a black tip and then part of the black tip is white at the very end. But the white is always touching black because the mottling is stopping the black from going all the way to the end of the feather. You should go read the thread and tell me what you think. Maybe I am reading it wrong.

Also my mottleds are really young and I think they will get more mottled as they get older and with each molt. But again I don't really know, these are the first time it has shown up in my flock.

Lanae