Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

Syble,
I hope all goes well with your Araucana hatch. Anyone else with Araucana hatches due soon? My next batch are from my own and the expected hatch date is April 18th.

 

[gootziecat]

I'm curious. Are Araucana chicks friendly? Some people say their breed(s) are people friendly and will come right up to the front and solicit human contact while brooding. My EE chicks scream and/or run if I stick my hand in, despite the fact they aren't the least bit afraid of me. Am I expecting too much?

 

[smoothmule]

Mine are all different and it doesn't seem to be related to whether I raised and handled them. Most that I've raised here are good to handle, some more friendly than others. Of the ones I've brought home as adults, some are sooo friendly and others run from me no matter how many times I've caught and petted them. One, LuvDove was mature when I brought her home. She immediately came to me to be held and I know she was never handled and petted where she came from. She's past being friendly, she wants to be carried and petted and handfed. She's the only one I have with a full tail but she does have tufts on both sides so I use that as a reason not to cull her yet. I wish she would be a broody type, I'm picking up a couple of Silkie hens to use for setting my Serama eggs and they're going to have their own area, no roosters allowed, so they can set to their hearts content. I may put her in with them to see if she would like to be a broody too.

 

[gootziecat]

LuvDove sounds delightful.

 

[coberdor]

I had some hatch this past weekend. No tufted, 3 never pipped. Of all that pipped, all hatched. I had to put one down. It had two curled up legs - really odd. That was one of my EE's so no worries there.

I have some from an earlier hatch from a month ago that several are turning out cuckoo. They came from my splash roo over my blue hen and blue/red laced hen. All are rumpless. My blue hen has one tuft, the roo is clean faced. I'll have to get some good pics when the sun is out. They look a little too red under the red light. They are rumpless/clean faced.

But I just got that nice splash tufted roo from Smoothmule, so once he's over his biosecurity confinement, he'll go into my blue pen.

 

[smoothmule]

Sounds like a typical Araucana hatch but I know that some....Lanae....have better hatch rates and getting some nice tufts. I'm getting a few tufts too and okay with my hatches although I always go over what occurred with mine during incubation and try to do better.

I hope Spot gives you some great chicks, with tufts. Feel free to rename him, the name stuck when he arrived. I try to give them names quickly so I can identify them and some names stick and some of them get new names when I get to know them better.

LuvDove was named from the first day she was here and it matches her perfectly.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Lanae, I just read about you in "The Blue Egg Clucker!" I got so goofy excited to see your name in there, my visiting family must have wondered what was the matter with me. Boy do I hope to make it to next year's Stockton show.



Congratulations everyone on your hatches! What an exciting thing to log on here and see all these Araucana hatches in progress.

I am beyond frustrated with my large fowl Araucana efforts - still no eggs at all. They are the only birds left out there not laying.

I have my first bantam Araucana eggs due to hatch this weekend, but I'm very upset about the egg color and don't know what I'll do with these chicks. I can't sell them without the disclaimer that they all come from brown eggs. I plan to raise the chicks up to see if this rooster is passing on the blue egg gene, but I'm not very inspired to breed with these girls. The blue egg color is pretty key, in my book.

 

[syble]

sorry to hear your troubles Megan, blue eggs are a big thing for me too... give them a chance to grow out, maybe they will have got it from dad and breed back to him to reinforce it?
Sib

 

[smoothmule]

CackleberryCoop

Hang in there with the large fowl girls, my hen Slinky was over a year old when she laid her first egg. Her eggs are still the largest I get and I understand there are some good things about these hens who are slower to mature. They are more long lived and productive in the long run is what I hear. I think it's pushing it to have pullets go into production from 4 months to 6 months of age and I'm not sure I like that. I am not into "production", I want the breed to be the best it can be and not like the production layers who are "spent" in their first couple of years. Be patient and I think you'll be rewarded. How old are your pullets now?
I don't think I would breed the hens that are producing the non-blue eggs. There are too many good bantam Araucana's out there to add these to the gene pool. Do you know what color eggs they came from? Do they all have good pea combs? At most, I think I would keep the pullets and wait till they're laying and only keep the hens and pullets then that are laying blue eggs and who do not have other faults then buy a new rooster from good blue egg background and begin working from there. that's what I would do but if the hens are outstanding specimens, and you want to risk having brown eggs popping up later, then just try to develop a plan to correct the egg color.


I hope Ann's eggs are hatching like crazy

I have the first 3 hatched (2 chipmunk and 1 blue?), the others have not pipped so hopefully they will tomorrow which is the day they were due to hatch anyway. Three is better than none but I'd love more....

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Thanks. The large fowl were laying last fall, so now I am just waiting for them to begin back up again now that the light is back; at least I know that the egg color is good.

It's the bantams who I have been waiting forever for to start laying. I had expected them to begin last fall as well, but nothing until recently. I am most upset about the brown eggs because I paid top dollar for these chicks from a very well known breeder who made no statement whatsoever about there being a possibility of some of the hens laying brown. One brown layer and I would have been bummed but understood, but all three of the bantams laying brown? Come on. Of course, they are all beautiful examples of good type. Argggg. The only reason to hatch out these chicks is to find out what this rooster is capable of. He's awesome and I'm dying to see what he produces, but I'm thinking that I will just do this one hatch or maybe two and then set the hens out to run with the egg laying flock. Just more Araucana money down the drain.

I actually have two bantam Araucanas who lay stunning, gorgeous, huge blue eggs, but I left them out of the breeding program because of faults. How difficult is it to breed out muffs again? I think that I would rather try to get rid of muffs than deal with brown egg genes.