Araucana thread anyone?

[megcpat]

How's your hatch going Cashdl?

 

[nyseman]

Quote:
I had 2 chicks hatch for me last year out of 9 from "skyblueegg" and the solid black chick turned into a silver duckwing and the brown stripe that looked like a chipmunk turn to a plain brownish red

 

[cashdl]

How's your hatch going Cashdl?

I think pretty good. I had 11 eggs under a broody and 17 in my incubator so far 16 have hatched, 2 died will piping, 3 are piping right now and one I accidentally dropped while getting ready for lockdown, 2 others are rocking. Tomorrow is day 24 if I counted right but I have another dozen that went into lockdown tonight so I will be letting the unhatched eggs go a bit longer.

Lanae​

 

[cashdl]

My hatch in lockdown I think has more eggs from my mille hen, I also have a batch I set on 4/18/2010 that has a few from her. And I set 42 last sunday and there are 6 or 8 from her. So I should have a nice selection of colors. I am hoping for a nice wheaten or spotted roo to breed back to her.

Lanae

 

[havi]

Okay I have 9 araucana's that are about a week old. I know they say that most of the time you should be able to see the tuffs right away, but I dont see any. Also some of them are starting to grow little tail feathers(see photo below) Im assuming these are the ones that will have tails? Or do they sometimes just grow over and can still be tailless? Ive only had one araucana to hatch for me before this, and that one turned out to have a tail.

So Im keeping my fingers crossed that they can still be tailless. I also have a lavender araucana that is a lot smaller than the rest of them. Looks almost bantam sized. Will she ever catch up with the rest of them or forever be small? In the second picture, the one up front on the right is the two week old blue araucana and then you can see the lav. araucana. You can see how tiny she is compared to her hatch mate right beside her.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Hi Havi!
If you are not seeing tufts then likely they do not have any. I have/had a few that had very small tufts and I could never see them until they were grown but then I am an old woman and don't see tiny things as well.

If you are getting tails on yours then they are not true rumpless Araucanas. Many people believe you should breed in tails but a lot of us breeders never do. Araucanas do not have tails. They are missing the last vertebrae and cannot grow one. A true Araucana will breed just fine without one. If you are seeing tails they will always have tails. I even cull the "stray feather on the rump" birds but so far it has only been in ones I have purchased that molted and not from ones I have raised.

Most of mine that have hatched small, stayed small. I really have not gotten any to exceed what I thought they would be when they were growing up small in this breed. Others may can give you pointers on things to help the little one try to catch up but here on my farm only the strong survive to keep the flocks and genetics going well.

 

[klf73]

I thought if you excluded tails, over time it shortens their backs which I guess is no good for their health and not good for fertility

 

[WestKnollAmy]

How is it going to shorten the back? They are only missing the last vertebrae same as an Arabian horse and they have been doing fine with their missing vertebrae for thousands of years. It isn't like they are going to keeping losing more of the vertebrae.
Araucanas are not true if you breed in tails. You wind up just breeding mixed mutts and calling the ones that come out like Araucanas true Araucanas. They can't be if they have tails.
I have a mixed mutt here that looks just like an Araucana. His mom had a tail....and lightly feathered legs. He hatched from her blue egg from my bilateral tufted Araucana. He is rumpless and even has a tuft but he is not a true Araucana. Up close you can see a bit of small feathers on his legs. That just shows you can breed a mutt bird to an Araucana and get something that looks like an Araucana. This breed has enough problems without throwing a bunch of other stuff in there.
And I don;t get how the fertility is a problem. Understanding how they breed is where I suppose I get better fertility. Araucanas aren't usually very fertile until warmer weather. I check all spring but they don't really kick in until May or June and I get great hatches from then until Sept. I don't rush my birds to do what I want. I wait for them to be ready and go by their cycle. I won't manipulate the breed to make it into something I need right then.

 

[megcpat]

I would love to hear more opinions about the backs becoming too short, or not. I have read the same thing that klf73 wrote, plus that some of the fertility troubles are due to the too short back of the rooster - that it inhibits their ability to mount and position correctly on the females during breeding. I'm guessing that you have never had a problem with this in your own flock, Nadine. Anyone else found this to be true?

 

[megcpat]

Quote:
Congratulations on your birds havi! They are very cute. Is it possible that the breeder you bought from slipped in a banty by mistake? I'd love to see updated photos as your Araucanas grow up.