Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

Araucana "breeders" will tell you they are not the correct color (the pullet may be) so they are Easter eggers.

But I have some clean faced rumpless araucanas that lay blue eggs but are not the proper color. I call mine pet quality Araucanas.

Enola,
I am a breeder of several years and what you're stating is totally incorrect. Easter Eggers have tails and have a beard and muffs white skin. They are never rumpless. If EE's look like any other breed, it would be closer to the Ameraucana.

Araucana's can come in all sorts of messed up colors. Doesn't make them impure, they have the color genes there to sort of to make them standard colors but they are Araucana's. You could take any breed with say, 5 different color varieties. Breed them all together and you'll get all sorts of messed up mixed up colors but are they suddenly not the breed? No, you can take those same birds and carefully and selectively breed them to bring them back to the standard colors.

If you want to be picky, all clean faced Araucana's are not Araucana because they have no tufts and therefore are not standard and would be disqualified at any show......however, how does anyone explain then, how you can hatch just a couple of Araucana's in a dozen clean faced mutts? Hardly makes sense eh? It's a breed. Not all meet the standard but they are what they are. Understanding the breed a bit better helps

 

[enola]

I am not being picky! I only stated what one breeder that wasn't being as kind and informative as you are told me. I have several araucanas that are not "show quality" that I simply refer to as "my pet quality" araucanas.

Sorry Aerielle, I did not mean to insult your chickens.........

 

[Aerielle]

No worries! I'm just trying to understand the breed better. I have silkies and showgirls and just came across these two last weekend. The breeder said one was blue tufted and the other a clean faced project calico mottled color. Both are rumpless but I noticed the difference in combs and leg color and just trying to learn the nuances of the breed. I appreciate everyone's feedback.

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha,

That other breeder was probably trying to b derogatory towards Araucanas with non-standard colors by calling them EEs.

Smoothmule is of course correct about EE's being a particular type of offshoot of the Ameraucanas, and not closely related to Araucanas at all.

Although I will agree that Araucanas should not be crossed with other breeds in order to get certain colors or other traits like Chocolate, the colors that ARE present in Araucanas who have not been hybridized should be respected as part of the breed, although not SOP.

Tufts or non-tufts does not define the breed. It is merely a trait that is hugely desirable in order to be SOP. Kind of like a tail with proper angle.

Aloha, Puhi

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha,

To be more clear. Rumpless, blue eggs, pea comb and and tufts does not define the breed. There are other traits in the pure araucana that are not in other breeds that are harder to define but nevertheless are part of the makeup of the araucana breed.

I admittedly do not have a lot of experience with araucanas, one thing that I notice with mine is that they are more dense than other breeds. Per size, they weigh more. They're solid. I am not sure if that is true for your araucanas. I can compare more when my babies from other breeders grow up more. But this is one example of an araucana trait that gets diluted when outcrossing is done to gather simple traits like feather color, because that is not what the particular breeder was looking for. Remember that the chicken genome is made of thousands of genes, many of which are unique to the araucana. And many of those many are unnoticed by us.

I read one ad on Ebay saying their araucanas pull lots of australorp. Why would they pull a lot of australorp? Are they part australorp? Because if they are part australorp, if their great great grandfather was an australorp, then they are not pure araucanas. Plain and simple. The bloodline has been diluted. And if people keep doing this and continue to call their birds araucanas, then they are doing a disservice to the breed.

Me trying to get araucana eggs to Hawai'i is a huge challenge. I can only hope that the people who are willing to send me eggs have pure araucanas. Me being one of the few people in Hawai'i raising araucanas, I want to have the real deal. One thing that I can say so far is that I've seen a lot of tails and that is a sign of outcrossing.

Everybody is so worried about tufts, I'm just worried about getting pure araucanas. I can get tufts later. I really like the black araucanas even though they're probably the most diluted of araucanas.

So if you think you got the real deal, can you send me some eggs?

Aloha, Puhi

 

[smoothmule]

Aloha,

To be more clear. Rumpless, blue eggs, pea comb and and tufts does not define the breed. There are other traits in the pure araucana that are not in other breeds that are harder to define but nevertheless are part of the makeup of the araucana breed.

I admittedly do not have a lot of experience with araucanas, one thing that I notice with mine is that they are more dense than other breeds. Per size, they weigh more. They're solid. I am not sure if that is true for your araucanas. I can compare more when my babies from other breeders grow up more. But this is one example of an araucana trait that gets diluted when outcrossing is done to gather simple traits like feather color, because that is not what the particular breeder was looking for. Remember that the chicken genome is made of thousands of genes, many of which are unique to the araucana. And many of those many are unnoticed by us.

I read one ad on Ebay saying their araucanas pull lots of australorp. Why would they pull a lot of australorp? Are they part australorp? Because if they are part australorp, if their great great grandfather was an australorp, then they are not pure araucanas. Plain and simple. The bloodline has been diluted. And if people keep doing this and continue to call their birds araucanas, then they are doing a disservice to the breed.

Me trying to get araucana eggs to Hawai'i is a huge challenge. I can only hope that the people who are willing to send me eggs have pure araucanas. Me being one of the few people in Hawai'i raising araucanas, I want to have the real deal. One thing that I can say so far is that I've seen a lot of tails and that is a sign of outcrossing.

Everybody is so worried about tufts, I'm just worried about getting pure araucanas. I can get tufts later. I really like the black araucanas even though they're probably the most diluted of araucanas.

So if you think you got the real deal, can you send me some eggs?

Aloha, Puhi

What does the term "pull a lot of Australorp" mean??

My Araucana's are very "dense" but out of 100 birds, statistically there will be variance. It's not possible they be 100% the same.

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha,

I donʻt see the ad anymore and "pull" might not be the word they used. But I wasnʻt sure what they were saying. Were they saying that it looked a lot like Australorp(but has no Australorp blood) or that the Australorp genes that it had were prominent in itʻs looks. The ad was not clear, so made me wonder what people do.

But in case people think outbreeding is OK, I had to say I was against it. Whatever crossbreeding that took place to make the breed happened long ago and no more outbreeding should be done. Thatʻs all Iʻm saying. Only breed to known "pure" araucana chickens.

kden, Puhi

 

[AppleJackAcres]

I'm finally getting some fertile eggs!

 

[smoothmule]

I'm finally getting some fertile eggs!

Congrats! Be sure to post photo's of the chicks


I've been hatching a few here and there. I have an all black flock but have one non-black hen that has been giving me some wild type pattern as well as some wheaten type.
These two chicks are going to my friend who is working on buff Araucana's. She wants them to have yellow legs so these wheaten chicks are going to work out great for her. Here is one of them,

 

[Brada Puhi]

That bugger is so cute!