Araucana thread anyone?

[Omniskies]

Understandable.

Out of curiosity, how do you fix droopy ear tufts? Do ear tufts start droopy and end up stronger as they age? Or do they start off strong and droop as they get larger? Or is "what you see, what you get"? Are droopy tufts a sign of tuftless + tufted breedings or something else?

I was going to keep a rooster with a tail to improve fertility, but read an article that whapped me over the head with how it really works. So instead of keeping a couple of tailed roosters, I'll probably keep a few extra rumpless males so if one doesn't find the mark someone else might be able to. What is the recommended male:female ratio with Araucanas? I have 30 or so roosters to pick from.

One of the girls wasn't feeling too great so I brought her inside and took a few pictures of her. After the first few bad shots, she figured out that the red light meant a giant flash was on the way and closed her eyes for the rest of the pictures. She has a droopy tuft. Should she be culled out? I have a few Blues in the batch and have a secret love for the color, so if it was up to me I'd forgive her for the droopy tufts and keep her, but if that is going to jeopardize the quality of the flock then I can sell her.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Unbelievable Omniskies! I am a wee-bit green with envy over your amazing find! A gigantic flock of Araucanas, without even looking for them. Uhhhmm, that just doesn't happen in life. Wow.
If you have solid blue birds, I would not cull them unless there was some very hard to breed out flaw and a droopy tuft is NOT a hard to breed out trait. There are quite a few of us here who have been looking for large fowl blue araucanas for, well, in my case, two years. They can be hard to come by. In fact...... I would love to see any photos of blue birds that you have and would you let me know if you decide to sell any of them? Thanks. Oh, and you mention an article on Araucana fertility that you read? Do you mind sharing your source - It sounds very informative.
Congratulations!!

 

[Illia]

Droopy ear tufts are permanent, and often genetic. They're a sign of either droopy tuft(s) x nontuft or just a fluke from uneven tufts x nontuft, from my experience.

 

[cashdl]

The tufts of the parent birds have little bearing on the tufts of the chicks. "Tufts have variable expressivity and incomplete penitrance". It means it varies where or how they will look. All that is certain, is you need at least one tufted parent to get a tufted chick. The reason your birds tufts droops is it is located low on the ear lobe or on its throat and it is a large tuft. The skin is more flexible there and not fully able to support the weight of the tuft.

Pair her with a nice not tufted roo and your good.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

I would concentrate on the culling the birds that have obvious faults, give it a breeding season, so what the birds you have left produce and then cull heavy for what ever your goals are next year. You are starting from a unique position. Most of us started with one or two birds and had to improve from there to get where we want to go. You have the oppisite problem which may be harder. It sounds like you have a lot of nice birds to choose from, so you need to be very specific with yourself and your goals and stick to them. Don't get rid of any double tufted birds whose tufts are perfect. Set them aside. Those would be the last I cull, unless they have bad attitudes.


Lanae

 

[Birch Run Farm]

I've gotten huge droopy tufts from parents that did not have them. I don't think they are a bad thing, just different, tufts seem to come in all sizes and shapes. I have noticed and don't know if this is genetic or not that cocks with uneven tufts have uneven wattles.

 

[cashdl]

Ann,

Silvers days of wine and roses are OVER! She has been a fertile-less pain, she is getting her but trimmed today. LOL! Right now she thinks she is Queen of the pen. Just wait. By this time next week, I should have some fertile eggs out of her.

I let them roam the yard the other day. They had so much fun. Minnie was a bit of a pain to get back in and so was the roo. Tomorrow is their day out again.

Lanae

 

[Birch Run Farm]

Silver is a very strong willed and independent girl. She was a killer biddy last year. Good luck settling her down.

 

[syble]

Being that i have a soft spot i would keep the blues! How many pens can you have? Keep any that are rumpless and tuffted (unless they have some big flaw), then keep the tufted, and the rumpless. Tufts sound more pain in the A$$ then breeding in rumpless. If you had a lot of space then i would definitely recommend partitioning off the solid black, and blues (and splash) away from any patterned critters, and again if you had the space then split the goldens from the silvers. Really photos would help.
Sib

 

[Omniskies]

My position is enviable and unenviable. I was _not_ planning on raising Araucanas. This started out as just buying up a bunch of extra roosters to put in the freezer next week. I know the guy who had the flock, and after I had bought out every rooster he asked me if I wanted the hens, too. Who am I to resist hens? So I came home, threw them in a pen to fatten up for two weeks, figured I could always use the hens as extra laying birds, then decided that if I already had a flock of really nice birds at the POL that had already had years of work put into them, that is ridiculously hard to find, why shouldn't I just add them to my breed list?

The only reason I'll have any culls at all out of this batch is because they were all juveniles that hadn't been thinned out in the first place. He had already sold off the parent flock (around 20-30~ birds) and had a barn full of young odds and ends. The Araucana hens were hiding among all of the roosters, and the roosters had been left behind by previous customers because of their smaller size when compared to actual meat breeds.

The great news is that I have this flock. The secondary great news is that I have plenty of open cages this year. The bad news is that I have a few breeds I am getting/expanding this year that will need to be in those pens next year.

So there are five pens now that my Araucanas can use. This fall I have to decide how many pens I want to build to separate everyone out for hatching season in the spring. I don't think I want multiple colors and I don't know what colors I do want. The pens aren't cheap and I was already struggling to figure out how to cook all of the eggs from my flocks if I don't sell any that week - this just makes it worse

What I know I have right now (off the top of my head) is as follows:

Plenty of Black Breasted Red roosters.
One Black Breasted Red hen (she was tiny and slipped through the cracks).

Blue hens and roosters.

Black hens and roosters.

A lot of Whites that are either dirty or have Pyle-like yellow markings on their shoulders/wings and across the back. Most of those are roosters.

I can make a pair of BB Reds, a small flock of Blues, a small flock of Blacks (or combine the two), and a small flock of Whites or oddly marked Whites - or I can just combine the colors and maintain one large flock. There may be some other colors in there that I keep overlooking. I'll know more when I start going through everyone this weekend when the weather isn't below-miserable with a windchill of stay-inside.

As for the articles, these are the two I found that I liked the most:

http://www.araucana.net/Araucana_ by_Rosalyn_Upson.htm
http://www.araucanasonline.com/info.html

There is more reading to be had, so these aren't by any means the best articles, just the best I've read yet.