Araucana thread anyone?

[mendocinosunris]

Hi all. I just discovered this thread tonight, so I haven't gotten a chance to read all the way through it. I just ordered my first Araucana hatching eggs today, so I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival and reading up in the meantime.
When I was in college, we had a field station with all kinds of animals, and I spent my time there working with what we called rumpless chickens. They were bantams (or very small standards), all the colors of the rainbow, and laid colored eggs. They had beards and muffs, but I never saw an ear tuft. Their rumpless trait worked the same way the tufted gene does--dominant and lethal in the homozygous state. Does anyone here know what breed these chickens were? And is the Araucana rumpless trait from a different gene? Thanks!

The only other breed I can think of that's close to your description is ameraucana. They have the beards and muffs, and lay blue eggs, but they have normal tails.
I think cashdl mentioned earlier that the araucana breed was standardized in the 70's or thereabouts? Maybe the chickens you worked with were nonstandard araucanas.

 

[smoothmule]

Here is the latest chocolate Araucana cross chick, hatched this morning.



This one is fully rumpless and has a single tuft for sure, possibly a smaller one on the other side. I have plenty of Araucana chicks to keep for next year and some to sell this fall so I went ahead and put my chocolate split rooster (Cracker Jack) in as the sole rooster for my 6 black hens. I have a rather elaborate plan to get my chocolate flock created and figure it will take 2 to 3 years to have them "correct" and all chocolate so that the whole flock will breed true to color. It sure doesn't hurt that my first crosses that are chocolate are also rumpless and tufted.

On the side, I also want to try for a few chocolate birchens, chocolate duckwings (both gold and silver) and chocolate mottled. My "standard" flock will be all black so I hope that in this years chicks there will be at least one that will be show quality but we'll see by fall how they're looking and in the spring I'll know even more.

Here's another pic. I just snapped these a few minutes ago on my desk with flash.

 

[cashdl]

Hi all. I just discovered this thread tonight, so I haven't gotten a chance to read all the way through it. I just ordered my first Araucana hatching eggs today, so I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival and reading up in the meantime.
When I was in college, we had a field station with all kinds of animals, and I spent my time there working with what we called rumpless chickens. They were bantams (or very small standards), all the colors of the rainbow, and laid colored eggs. They had beards and muffs, but I never saw an ear tuft. Their rumpless trait worked the same way the tufted gene does--dominant and lethal in the homozygous state. Does anyone here know what breed these chickens were? And is the Araucana rumpless trait from a different gene? Thanks!

Araucanas are dominant rumpless and it is a non lethal gene. There is a rare form of rumplessness called recessive rumplessness and it is lethal. A bird with recessive rumplessness should never be used in a breeding program. Recessive rumpless birds have arched or roached backs and crooked legs in moderate forms. They tend to limp also. In extreme cases they can barely move at all.

The manx rumpie is a dominant rumpless bird also, comes in just about every color, but typically lays a tan egg. Rarely will they lay a blue egg. Something like 1 in 1000. However araucana has been added to the gene pool in this country and those that say they have rumpies say they lay a blue egg, which is not in the breed description.



Lanae

 

[KirstenJL]

Araucanas are dominant rumpless and it is a non lethal gene. There is a rare form of rumplessness called recessive rumplessness and it is lethal. A bird with recessive rumplessness should never be used in a breeding program. Recessive rumpless birds have arched or roached backs and crooked legs in moderate forms. They tend to limp also. In extreme cases they can barely move at all.

The manx rumpie is a dominant rumpless bird also, comes in just about every color, but typically lays a tan egg. Rarely will they lay a blue egg. Something like 1 in 1000. However araucana has been added to the gene pool in this country and those that say they have rumpies say they lay a blue egg, which is not in the breed description.



Lanae

Thanks for the welcome! It sounds like I was working with some kind of mutt then. They definitely weren't recessive rumpless--except for lacking ear tufts and having beards/muffs they looked just like the Araucanas I see on this thread. There were eggs of all colors, including blue. I'm sure about the rumpless genetics though, because I did a research project on them. I did test crosses and the numbers conformed to dominant-lethal. I was told the homozygous ones died in the shell on the 19th day, and I did recover the dead embryos and bone-stain them (maybe TMI, sorry!) and they were all rumpless. Weird. I sure wish I had taken pictures of the parent birds! I'm wondering now if they had inconspicuous ear tufts along with beards/muffs. This was in the early 1980's, by the way, and sadly my professor has passed away and the field station no longer has chickens.

Oh, and we also had a pen of birds that we called Araucanas. These were standard size, blue-egg laying, variably bearded and muffed. They had kind of sad little insignificant tails, but the tail bones were definitely there, unlike rumpless with a couple of tail feathers leaking through. Again, no ear tufts that I recall. Maybe these were the European varieties.

 

[cashdl]

Sorry, I should have said welcome to our thread. LOL! So tired here.

A truly rumpless bird does not have tail feathers at all. They are missing the last vertebre where feathers form. Their little butt are actually dented in like a U shape.

There may have a 1 time been another form of rumplessness but dominant rumplessness is definately non lethal, however I will say that if you breed short backed rumpless birds to short backed rumpless birds you will eventually get birds who cannot sustain life because there is not enough room in their bodies to have all their parts working correctly. It is very important to keep in mind conformation when breeding araucana. A very short backed bird if hatched will usually only live a couple of weeks. You can easily tell the short backed ones because their wings when they start to feather in are way longer than their bodies instead of ending nicely where their butt rounds down. It is not the rumpless gene that kills them, it is selectively breeding for shorter and shorter backs, which create to small of a body. This could cause death befor hatching.

Lanae

 

[Stacykins]

Is this chick...mottled? Or is it too soon to tell?

 

[Puddin Fluff]

Okay, I am jumping in on a different topic but I just had to say I heard my 11 week old cockeral crow for the first time today!!

 

[smoothmule]

Okay, I am jumping in on a different topic but I just had to say I heard my 11 week old cockeral crow for the first time today!!

Very cool! I love when they start crowing for the first times

 

[smoothmule]

Is this chick...mottled? Or is it too soon to tell?

Yep, Mottled

 

[hennesseyt]

Araucana Roos, are they generally friendly? I have read that this was a sweet breed. I would love to keep a rooster for my flock but have been having bad luck with mean ones. They all have gone after my two and four year old they walk by. They are good kids who don't chase the chickens. they all were raised by us from chicks.