Araucana thread anyone?

[cashdl]

I was looking at my 3 week chicks today and noticing that as their feathers on their wings are growing in some are square or rounded uniformly, and a few chick feathers narrow towards the end and then get an almost bulb look to the end. Does anyones else notice this on their chicks and have they seen it on males and female or is it maybe an indicator of gender?

Lanae

 

[Illia]

Not particularly. I know that some people sex their chicks based on how uniform their secondaries vs primaries grow, but that's about it. Of course, the chest feathers of a cockerel I believe will often start out more rounded, but don't quote me on that.

Usually I just vent sex or color sex them or wait until their combs come in at around 4 weeks old.

 

[cashdl]

Ok Illia,

What is this? Boy or girl. I don't think the pic is great. It is tufted and BBR colored most likely.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

First pic was really bad sorry. LOL!

Lanae

 

[Illia]

The barred one you really should've sexed before it got feathers.

That's how I knew I had myself a blue cuckoo pair before the boy even crowed. Otherwise, just look for the comb development.

(any barred or cuckoo chick can be sexed by the larger, messier looking white dot on males while females have a smaller, finer white dot)

The second one looks like a boy with those pale immature feathers and remaining red feathers. It has duckwing in it, yes?

 

[cashdl]

The barred one wasn't barred before it got feathers. It was a lovely soft blue like the other one in the pic. Its barring keeps getting darker.

The bbrish one is out of my bbr pen. It is one of the last chicks I got to hatch before my bbr roo died. I have two more eggs in the incubator that are his. So I am hoping for a nice tufted BBR roo to replace him. Now I just have to wait. Since this chick is tufted It will go in a breeding pen no matter what it is.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

How does everyone have their breeding pens set up. Do you have a breeding pair, or trio per pen. Do you have several roos with a few girls of the same color. What are the size of your pens.

I have 8 pens. (4) are 16 X 16 and (4) are 8 X 8. I have 1 roo and 3 hens per pen. Only 3 pens being used right now. I splash pen with 2 blue hens and a splash hen, 1 blue pen with 1 blue, 1 splash, and 1 Aov , and a duckwing pen with 2 duckwing hens and a blue hen. Used to have a BBR pen till the roo died so I moved the girls to the other pens.

I like having 1 roo per pen. Then I know who the dad is.

What works best for you all.


Lanae

 

[Illia]

Hahah, I don't have pens. Don't believe in them.

All of my girls, no matter what breed or color, are mixed and mingled in the pasture, going free range. The boys are all together, too, but in a "bachelor pad," which is about 200 x 150 ft. When it comes time, I have very specific breeding I can do, whereas there is a small pen inside the bachelor pad that I stick the desired couple in. Once they're done, I put both back into their places, then I collect the fertilized hen's eggs. (Yes, I actually have and spend the time to know who laid what.)

 

[cashdl]

Very impressive Illia,

My layers are free range and any araucana that don't make the grade go there. I do have a bachelor pen not nearly as big but its for my culls and eating birds.

There are only a few hens whose eggs I can recognize so that method wouldn't work for me but I am glad it works for you.

Lanae

 

[star2525]

Illia,

After your matings and you put the birds back, I take it you have a holding pen set up for the hen you bred for collecting just her eggs to incubate.

I have several different coops and am getting ready to build another coop with 5 areas, I was going to keep one of the pen areas open to use as a breeding pen. I keep all of my Araucanas together Roosters included, currently I have 4 roosters with 8 hens, last year when I did breedings I specifically put tufted with clean faced and tailed with rumpless together, I got alot of tufted chicks with a few of them being rumpless as well, I may try doing that again this coming spring with my Araucanas I really liked what I got last year alot better than what I got this year from my birds.

I'm going to use my Gold Duckwing cleanfaced and partial tailed rooster this year with 2 white hens I got that are tufted and rumpless to see if I can possibly get some Buffs from the matings, the 2 white ones are just pullets right now and am getting ready to integrate them with the rest of the birds in that coop, then I have 8 stragler chicks that 3 of them are roo chicks that I'm going to also integrate into the same coop after I get the 2 white ones established with the rest of the birds. One of those Roo chicks is rumpless and clean faced and like I said before shows alot of Mahogany, he also looks purple in the feathers in his back, the first one I've got with this much of a purple to the coloring, and One of those roo chicks is black and white, he's tailed and clean faced so I'll be putting him with rumpless tufted when I do mate with him, he's not old enough right now, I'm kind of anxious to see what I get from him as far as colors go. I have one Roo that is an exact copy of the Roo in my Avatar and that came from my breedings from last year, he got his fathers tufts for sure and he's tailed, I have a blue red rumpless clean faced Rooster and also a White Splash Rooster with very little splash to him, he's clean faced and rumpless, I did from last years breedings get better comb sizes on my Roos, so that was an improvement. I got set back with my birds that I have now because my husband had German Shepherds that killed my birds, this year will be quite different, and should be productive, I eliminated the Husband and the Dogs and now have Guardian Livestock Dogs in place, a whole lot more peaceful around here now than what it was. So I'm looking forward to this years breeding season for sure. I'm hoping to get something produced that I can show, had several last year that I planned to show and the dogs took care of that for me. They almost completely eliminated all of my blue egg laying hens, I only have 2 birds now that I am getting anything even close to blue from as far as egg color. At least one of these 2 white pullets lays a blueish egg so that should help.

Victoria