Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

My breeding pens have not been set up long enough for me to really feel comfortable that all the hens in each pen are only fertile by the rooster I chose for that pen. I really "just have to" quit moving them around or I'll never figure out who needs to be with whom next spring.....

 

[ndoles]

I have a 2 month pullet that looks like Joker..

 

[smoothmule]

The people I got these guys from bought them both as pullets. When Joker matured, and started crowing, they had to get rid of him since they live in a city and they can't keep roosters. So I named him Joker because of the joke he pulled on them to make them think he was a pullet,

 

[SBE]

My guess would be that your hen, genetically, is either a brown red with a blue gene, or a brown red / extended black split, with a blue gene added. The blue feathers can fade and get brownish looking, and if dun was known in the Araucana I would agree that would be a good guess, too.

The cockerel looks like he is getting close to a good golden duckwing. The correct color is silver hackles and saddle with a golden wing bow but most people don't have that color in their GDW's. The mottling on his breast could be caused by one copy of the Columbian (Co) gene?

Ann

 

[smoothmule]

Ann,
That makes the most sense of anything I've been told yet, thank you! I feel I might be able to work on the color then.

The gold duckwing thing threw me since the silver neck hackles, to my slow brain, made me think silver duckwing but the gold in the wing bow just confused me. I see it now. I think he is the sire of my duckwings, one that I'm keeping. Columbo is really turning out nice and I think he's already trying to breed. He's good sized and heavy.

This is Columbo, hatched in mid January so he's just turning 6 months. He thinks he's a stud already, the photo here was taken at 4 months and he's much nicer now. I have no idea what hen he's out of but thought it was Slinky she's got the colombian gene too, I think and he has less patterning on his breast......so far anyway.

 

[SBE]

We are all learning as we go . . . The Golden Duckwing can be really confusing IMO because so few people show a Golden Duckwing (including myself) that has achieved the correct color as described by the standard. The Modern Games and some of the OEG breeders have well colored Golden Duckwings, and our Araucana should eventually be the same color as the birds that the game breeders are showing. But, just for the basics - your Golden Duckwing Araucana should have creamy white head and hackle with golden wing bows. That requires two copies of the Silver gene in your male birds, but you must also maintain that golden wing bow. In contrast, the Silver Duckwing should have 'silvery' white head, hackles, and wing bows (silvery white on the back also, plus part of the wing). I think the toughest thing will be for you to get rid of the hackle striping - No variety of Large Fowl Araucana male should have hackle striping - yet most of our Araucana do have it. I finally have a nice big, correct Golden Duckwing-ish cockerel that has excellent tufts. However, he has hackle striping and he only has one Silver gene. Like a lot of breeders, I have been working on Golden Duckwing for years and have hit a lot of dead-ends. But I do have some BB Red's with hackles that are almost clear so I am making some progress on that front.

Golden Duckwing is just about my favorite color - I can't wait to see (or breed one) that is close to the standard description. : )

Ann

 

[hinkjc]

Gosh, it seems like it takes me forever to get around to taking pictures, but here are some updated pics of some of my youngsters growing out.

This white pullet on the left has gorgeous tufts.

 

[cmsdvm]

Very nice leg color on the white pullet, too. I really like her!

 

[smoothmule]

Love the depth of the leg color too, really nice looking bunch of chicks. I looked at new camera's today but haven't bought one yet. We had family reunion today and stopped by Sam's Club to look at what they had but I think they had a better variety and better prices at Walmart. My camera is "off and on" as far as working, really unreliable.

I need to take some pictures of my youngsters too, I have a bunch

 

[hinkjc]

Thanks, I love the yellow skin on the white birds too. It took us a long time to get that right. When we hatched our first whites about 7 yrs ago, they had white skin and no tufts. I am really happy with the consistency in them now but it was a long road to get them there.

I had a bird who I thought was dun, but sadly we put her down this year when she prolapsed when she came back into lay in early spring. I would have liked to do some test mating to see exactly what genes she carried. She seemed to have various genes that would have been interesting to work with. I know she was diluted by something and also had mottling, so it would have been neat to work with her.