Araucana thread anyone?

[exoticduckluvr]

ugh!!!!!!! got 2 bantam roo's too and 1 Standard which I will be getting rid of. Got him penned with the BCM's. Might as well make me some olive eggers lol

 

[cashdl]

I have never had my blue egg layers in any part of their laying cycle lay a green tinted egg. Now I have blue egg layers, blue green layers, and green layers. I have found that they will lighten in their respective colors but not change colors.

Right now my green layers eggs are pretty pale, but everyone elses has darkened nicely.

As soon as I add olive eggers I will have a nice mixed basket of eggs.

Lanae

 

[exoticduckluvr]

I am on pins and needles. My new all Tufted Bantam Araucana(9?what ever fit into the goose box)( couple of tailed and the rest Rumpless) are on the way from Ma. They are out of Bobbi Portos line and I forget the other person, just remember they are out of Tx too. I traded 6 Ringed Teal Ducks for them but had to wait for another cool front for him to be able to ship back to me.

Well I am pretty certain the beige egg layer is Fugly. Knew I didn't like that bird from the start. Only she and Fawn laid today and it was in the nest Fugly was in

 

[cashdl]

What does poor fugly look like. I hope she at least has a good personality if she is ugly and lays the wrong color eggs.

Lanae

 

[exoticduckluvr]

she does have good personality but is very ugly and now a beige egg layer

 

[Shaffer]

exoticduckluvr,
The brown egg gene is recessive and could be hidden even after breeding 100 generations unless every bird the owner has have been test mated and grew all the offsprings. This would or could be a monumental operation to do such a task.
I do recommend that you cull that pullet if she is laying brown eggs. I don't know how many birds you are raising from that particular batch but you could test mate them. The more chicks you raise from the test mating the better your percentage would be that you screened the gene. Oh, by the test mating you will have to use a male or female breed that produces brown eggs and would have to test both your males and females. Don't forget you have to raise all those test matings to the point of all the pullets laying which would now be culls or could be used as EEs.

 

[exoticduckluvr]

I am just totally disgusted over it all. I got 7 bantam chicks from the same breeder. 1 ended up being a Standard with feathers on the legs, none had tufts as the ad on her site said you would get some tufted, and now this brown eggs layer. And she has the gall to say she has the "Top line in the Country" Yea Right!!!!!!

I just keep telling myself that all the bad you do will some day come back on you 3 fold and you have to answer to the man up stairs in the end

 

[Shaffer]

exoticduckluvr,
Well it all depends how bad you really want Araucanas. If you have gotten enough birds that you can salvage your investment then pursue with what you have and see how the offsprings turn out for you. If you do not have a tufted bird eventually you will need to acquire one since they do not pop up out of the blue, generally they have to be visual but not always.
This is really one of the most difficult breeds to start with and a lot of people quit after one or two seasons because the disappointments out way the happy achievements of producing a show type bird. I generally only get about 10% out of my entire hatches that I call good birds (rumpless tufted) and then they are not always correct coloring since I only raise blacks and lavenders. Everyone says the blacks are the easiest to breed but try and find a good one.

I would like to see you give it a good shot and try and see what you can produce. You raise those fancy ducks(assuming by your BYC name) so you are already use to disappointments to some degree. Good luck.

 

[cashdl]

I had a roo ( he recently died) he was hatched out of eggs from a known breeder. He had a straight comb (huge), but he had two amazing tufts and perfect coloring. I bred him like crazy and culled everything that had a straight comb(fortunately only 1 in 40 chicks this summer). The only roo I have kept out of him has two huge tufts, a tiny ( so far) pea comb, looks to be rumpless (so far ) and is black. The roo was BBR and I had hoped to get a BBR to replace him but while only one of his offspring looked to have a straight comb, either none of the others were colored right or they didn't have tufts. If I keep the roo chick I will keep on eye on his chicks for comb. But so far I am happy with what came out of his pen. I had the highest percentage of tufted out of his pen.

I know the breeder has good even great birds. He hatched out of a blue egg. Oh well.

Araucana's are rare enough and expensive enough that I work with what I have and see where it takes me. None of my birds are perfect, someday maybe.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

If it was me,

I would breed her to a roo from a blue egg. Keep the pullets that lay at least green eggs, and so on. I kinda think seeing what you get is half the fun.



Lanae