Everyone here is different. Some breed just for the "type" and not color. Some are backyard breeders who enjoy the mixed colors. Some are breeders who have standard colors, some have both. Some breeders start with the best they can find and breed only to the standard.
Myself, I started "looking" about 6 or 7 yrs ago. I tried everywhere, I even joined the Araucana club to no avail. No one would sell me an Araucana. I was beginning to feel it was personal, lol. But, I finally got my start, a rooster, a cockerel and a pullet. None of them the same color and none standard. It was past a year before my pullet laid her first egg but by then I had gotten lucky in finding a local breeder who was selling out because of health. He was a mess, really messed up the colors and didn't select well otherwise for breeding but I didn't care. I slowly developed my flock, buying young and older Araucana's, hatching eggs at times but not a whole lot of luck with them, and I am finally getting there with some quality Araucana's in both standard color (black) and other colors that I don't have hens and roosters that match correctly but very good otherwise. I may be able to pull a rabbit out of my hat this year with that pen and see some standard colors like Duckwing and BBR but we'll see. I also have a "project" pen to make chocolate Araucana's with the recessive/sex linked chocolate gene.
I always feel a smile coming on when I see someone mention questions about not breeding toward the standard. This breed is still rare and for that reason and other reasons, you "will" see non-standard Araucana's being bred to produce more standard type and colors and there are several reasons for this.
Number one, colors do get messed up and mixed up when there are more than one variety in a breed. That's not so hard to fix.
Number two, type is always something to breed towards and perfect.
Number three, Tufts and Rumpless....... these are the traits that set this breed apart from others. It's what initially draws interest and what confounds the other breeds breeders.
Rumpless isn't such an issue to me. It's a dominant gene and if they have a gene for it, they will be rumpless. It can vary and be bred to be better. Balance is the key and with such a small gene pool, culling all but fully rumpless could have bred them into extinction. There are a lot more breeders now and more Araucana's so I expect this issue to go away in a few more years but I am never opposed to using an otherwise "very good" tailed Araucana in the breeding pen. There are some that are homozygous rumpless but are heterozygous so they can still throw a few with tails, partial tails or a few stray tail feathers. With care, the tails can be bred out and there is an ongoing study of the rumpless gene and some of the breeders have contributed DNA to test for the gene. There is so much interest in it because of the connection to human issues. Rumpless is the standard but along with tufts, it can also have effects on breeding practice. Because the anatomy is sometimes difficult for natural breeding with a rumpless, trimming vent feathers is a common practice to increase fertile eggs.
Tufting issues will always remain debatable but in the end, breeders choose whether to breed tufted to tufted and know there will be some that die in the shell before hatching due to the lethal gene associated with homozygous tufting or breed clean faced to tufted. Some, like me, even breed clean faced to clean faced to improve type or color then add tufting later. In the end though, the standard of perfection cannot allow all these differences so the SOP is what it is. How we breed toward that has many paths, unlike most other poultry breeds who have more cookie cutter type and color.
I Love the challenge and while I do breed "toward" the SOP, I also use non standard Araucana's to get there.
I can't help but feel appreciation for the breeders who have worked to keep the breed from dying out. The recent discoveries in science has proven the significance in this breed going. Here is a link to some of what the Araucana has contributed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402462/?tool=pubmed
Getting blues and black roosters with no red leakage is a challenge and you won't have any trouble selling them
. I realize that Im just very impatient and it would be a privilege to work with this beautiful bird. I knew this when I decided to raise this bird and thought it would be a good long range 4-H project for my family, but at some point I got carried away seeing pictures everyones beautiful flock and counting my chickens before they hatched (hehe). This must make you appreciate what you have so much more.
