Araucana thread anyone?

[ochochicas]

Quote: This is entirely true. In Washington state there have been several farms that have tested positive for Avian Influenza. ALL of the birds at the farms had be be culled. These were not just commercial flock, but also "backyard" pets belonging to people just like you and me. I can't imagine having to say good-bye to all my feathered friends. The quarantine is in place to protect you and your birds.

 

[smoothmule]

Is there someone in Arkansas preferably central area of Arkansas that raises Araucsna's?

I am looking for a cull from someone ( cull meaning a tailed Araucana), rooster but would consider a pullet or two. Reasonably priced, they are for my EE project.

I have a cull Araucana roo with leakage and partial tail you can have for the cost to ship him. I'm in SW Missouri

 

[smoothmule]

Hatching Araucanas and then raising them is no different than any other breed. Just be careful when buying your hatching eggs. If two tufted chickens are used when breeding, up to 50% of the chicks will die before hatching as a result of the tufting gene. Ask the breeder if there are tufted and clean faced birds in the breeding flock.

25% of the chicks will die in the shell if you breed tufted to tufted. 25% will be tufted and 50% clean faced. This would be based on at least 100 chick hatched for the stats to work out

 

[smoothmule]

My advice is buy chicks or started or grown stock. These are a very difficult breed.

Harry,
After breeding and developing my flock for over 8 yrs now, and that is a short time compared to some, I have found this breed to be just as easy as any. I spent the first few years gathering as many lines as possible, then the rest of the time developing quality from that mixed up messed up flock. I don't clip butt fluff and I still get around 90 to 100% fertility. The chicks are robust and healthy.
In the begining here, I think there was a real crisis coming on this breed. There were so few lines to work with, most of those were pretty tightly bred so the gene pool was getting pretty thin. I had a Lot of short backs, tails, just poor birds in all sorts of messed up patterns. Once I had them more genetically diverse, I began to fine tune them and continued to add new lines. Risky? Definitely. My primary goal was Not to let any white genes in, lol. Other than that, I learned how black works and began to cull anything that were wheaten under then black and there was a lot of it. That seemed to be the primary cause for leakage that just could not be bred out of my black cockerels. I finally found a black cock to buy with no leakage and I finished selling out every hen that was not black and ever since, I have had no issues raising these guys and even won some at a local show last spring. I'll never feel done perfecting them but I sure feel like I'm working with a much better flock now.

Hatched this one on New Years Day this year. This chick has a mottling gene, a few of mine do. Hoping to develop it further but it generally does not cause problems in the blacks.

 

[draye]

I have a cull Araucana roo with leakage and partial tail you can have for the cost to ship him.  I'm in SW Missouri

Hey, thanks but I have a question first on that. If adding the Araucana genes to the EE would that give me non-breaded babies? I really got to thinking about this after my post, I don't really care much for clean faced EE's. I know they are not a breed but just a thing I breed for.

On another thought I suppose they could help build a bluer egg for my Blue/green egg laying naked necks.

What part of SW Missouri are you in? I'm in central Arkansas about a four hour trip to the Missouri line. You have any ideal what the cost to ship would be to 72103 zip along with the shipping crate cost? I'm kind kf having to watch my pennies right now, just got laid off my job. Just trying to hang onto my chickens right now.

Thanks very much.

 

[smoothmule]

I live a bit over 2 hours from the border if you're talking south of Branson but the border covers a lot of ground, lol. Shipping is more often cheaper than the cost to drive to pick up when you're talking hours. Fuel isn't cheap

Shipping (and I'd give you the box since it's used, they cost me $7) could be $40 or $50 since it's good sized. And instead of the partial tailed, I have one by a rooster from a friend that I wanted to add the genetics to my flock and he's fully tailed, he may have some tiny tufts. He was the only tailed from that hatch so between him and one of my hens, there is still a tail gene. Easy to fix and I would have paid well for this cockerel a few years back, just for the fact he's black with no red leakage. That is hard to find in the Araucana's.

As far as bearded and muffed, they are genetically linked so when you have one, you'll have the other too. The gene for bearded/muffed is dominant so it takes one parent being bearded/muffed to make chicks with it. If both parents are, all the chicks will be. If one parent is bearded/muffed, the chicks will be 50/50 and the clean faced half will not carry the gene at all then. The bearded/muffed chicks will have one gene for it so breeding back to bearded/muffed, there should be 25% clean faced, 25% bearded/muffed that are homozygous and 50% that are bearded/muffed that are heterozygous. The nice thing about chickens, you can hatch a Lot and cull down to the best, those that you want.

This cockerel will be a year old in late spring, he's a nice sized roo. If you don't want him, I understand about the shipping cost thing, he is free to anyone wanting him. If he doesn't go soon, he will be dinner and he's too pretty for that. He "is" Araucana. Tail genes are easy to breed out. I did it and was not a bit concerned about using this unrelated roo and getting a couple partial tailed and him tailed. If you breed the Araucana, you have to know you'll be working a little harder to learn genetics than with most "cookie cutter" breeds but that is what I Love about them.

This is the cockerel I'm offering. He is free ranging at this time and very healthy....and very black. He would make some very pretty chicks. To anyone interested in him to breed to Araucana hens, he is out of one of my rumpless hens and breeding him back to rumpless, I have found this type of cockerel to produce more than 50% rumpless. His sire is also fully rumpless so both mother and father had one gene for tailed.

 

[draye]

I live a bit over 2 hours from the border if you're talking south of Branson but the border covers a lot of ground, lol. Shipping is more often cheaper than the cost to drive to pick up when you're talking hours. Fuel isn't cheap Shipping (and I'd give you the box since it's used, they cost me $7) could be $40 or $50 since it's good sized. And instead of the partial tailed, I have one by a rooster from a friend that I wanted to add the genetics to my flock and he's fully tailed, he may have some tiny tufts. He was the only tailed from that hatch so between him and one of my hens, there is still a tail gene. Easy to fix and I would have paid well for this cockerel a few years back, just for the fact he's black with no red leakage. That is hard to find in the Araucana's. As far as bearded and muffed, they are genetically linked so when you have one, you'll have the other too. The gene for bearded/muffed is dominant so it takes one parent being bearded/muffed to make chicks with it. If both parents are, all the chicks will be. If one parent is bearded/muffed, the chicks will be 50/50 and the clean faced half will not carry the gene at all then. The bearded/muffed chicks will have one gene for it so breeding back to bearded/muffed, there should be 25% clean faced, 25% bearded/muffed that are homozygous and 50% that are bearded/muffed that are heterozygous. The nice thing about chickens, you can hatch a Lot and cull down to the best, those that you want. This cockerel will be a year old in late spring, he's a nice sized roo. If you don't want him, I understand about the shipping cost thing, he is free to anyone wanting him. If he doesn't go soon, he will be dinner and he's too pretty for that. He "is" Araucana. Tail genes are easy to breed out. I did it and was not a bit concerned about using this unrelated roo and getting a couple partial tailed and him tailed. If you breed the Araucana, you have to know you'll be working a little harder to learn genetics than with most "cookie cutter" breeds but that is what I Love about them. This is the cockerel I'm offering. He is free ranging at this time and very healthy....and very black. He would make some very pretty chicks. To anyone interested in him to breed to Araucana hens, he is out of one of my rumpless hens and breeding him back to rumpless, I have found this type of cockerel to produce more than 50% rumpless. His sire is also fully rumpless so both mother and father had one gene for tailed.

That is one beautiful rooster right there. As much as I would love to have him I think I'd better wait a while before investing (shipping cost) into more chickens right now. I appreciate the offer. When I can secure a job and get back on my feet I'll be sure to look you up. Hope you can find him a home.

 

[smoothmule]

That is one beautiful rooster right there. As much as I would love to have him I think I'd better wait a while before investing (shipping cost) into more chickens right now. I appreciate the offer. When I can secure a job and get back on my feet I'll be sure to look you up.

Hope you can find him a home.

He has to go very soon.

 

[newbiejones]

I recently incubated about 4 dozen araucana blue eggs. They are due to hatch in 2 days. I am not sure what to expect. We bought the eggs at an auction. I have heard that they are stubborn a lot and most of them never hatch....any advice. Do they all have beards? Some say that araucanas are actually just Easter Eggers. just curious what the experts have to say

Thanks in Advance

 

[luckysaysgo]

Well I'm no expert but I have hatched some of these. They hatched without incident. They have a low hatch rate if you get two tufted genes, I think. Tufts are way different than a beard or muff. Tufts sort of dangle off each side like feathery earrings...Of the 15 or so that hatched all but one were clean faced. None had tails. The EE's and Americanas have the muffs and beards...there is a really good thread on here comparing the three breeds..look up araucanas and you will find find it. I hope you get a great hatch rate!