Araucana thread anyone?

[Stacykins]

Quote:
Thanks! Nine out of sixteen are out, and thus far only the one is tufted! I guess since I hit the tufted jackpot last hatch this one doesn't have such a great ratio (last hatch over half were tufted!)!

 

[puredelite]

Stacykins, You did hit the jackpot on tufted chicks! In fact, that's about the greatest ratio I've heard of. I have only hatched about 15 chicks this summer and have 3 or 4 that have tufts. Have been many fully formed but died before hatching. For me the supposedly "normal" tufted ratio of breeding Tufted to CF has been way off.... Glad to see that you are having great success in that department! Charlie

 

[syble]

Every ones having such good hatches, i'm happy to see the breed getting some upswing! My 4 little guys are comming along well. Couple of questions for our seasoned vets!

At what age on average do the hens start to lay. Also, how well do younger birds handle the cold? If we get eggs with a few months before it gets cold out, we'd like to hatch a few more in hopes of having a half decent base of hens in the spring for eggs. our barn is insulated and doesn't get below freezing in there usually until December at most.

Thanks
Sib

 

[smoothmule]

Syble,
I've had them start laying as young as 6 months and as old as past a year old. Seems it's very individual. The only reason I'm certain about the past a year old, is that she was the only blue egg layer in with my Maran hens at the time and I knew her age, plus there was no place to hide her eggs in the coop, it was all open. She laid her first egg in one of the nest boxes and it was a teeny one

 

[smoothmule]

I have been working to decide what I want to do and decided to sell my BBR/wild type/Duckwing type colors and concentrate on the whites, blacks and a few blues to get them to standard in type, better combs, color, leg color etc. I have some chicks to adults to sell but it's too hot to ship but I have some of them sold to a local breeder who is just getting started. She's already bought quite a few chicks and hatching eggs from me and is excited to get a head start with some that are laying now. I will keep a few blacks, whites and blues and one splash from my chicks so far that I think will make the cut and hope there will be more hatching soon that will be kept till spring if they're too young to evaluate this fall.

I had bought the tufted/rumpless white rooster from Ann Charles that has an attitude and we're working through it pretty good and hope to hatch come eggs from his pen Tuesday although some from his pen will still be by Casper for a while. The routine has been to reach in and grab him (his name is Blanco) when he's up front and hold him while I feed and collect eggs etc and I carry him around when I have time. He was so funny. It didn't take him 2 days to settle in and decide to whup me. I grabbed him and held him close and carried him around and I didn't know a rooster could show so much expression in his eyes. His eyes got larger and more round as I walked off from the pens with him under my arm (I'm pretty sure he thought he was going to the chopping block, lol) . He acted mad, pecked at me and all that and My response was to snuggle him more and pet him on the head and talk to him. Only after he settled down did I put him back with his hens (he's in one of my wire pens) and if he turned around with that attitude look then I grabbed him again and repeated it. He only got peace when he would behave when I sat him down in the cage. I can reach in and pet him now. He actually stands back quietly when I get the eggs but he does still have his moments, lol. We just do the routine and he settles down. He's a really good fella, not bloodthirsty, but has more attitude than my other roosters. Still, I am happy to give him the respect due a rooster and I don't want to squash his spirit. He just has had to learn to respect me too and we're about there since I can see him "thinking" before he tries anything now and it's getting to where that is pretty seldom. I really have enjoyed those moments when he looks at me quietly and stands there as I fill the water and pick up eggs and even when I pet the hens. Snowy and Fawn are both very sweet and come right to me for attention and petting so I think we'll be okay as far as chicks. Thank you Ann for your honesty about Blanco and for selling him to me instead of making a meat pie out of him

I think, no I know I'll miss seeing the interesting colored chicks I've been hatching when I get to the point of only the black, white, blue and splash chicks but I'm looking forward to seeing better quality every year and I do have a project to work with and I can include the colors other than white with it. I may go back to try the duckwings or BBR later on. Anyone that's interested can PM me for what is available. I'll still be hatching chicks from that pen so there will be some young ones this fall too. If the weather would cooperate and cool down a few days, I can ship some.

*****I had been thinking about this for quite a while and finally decided to go with it. I'm going to work on adding the color "Chocolate" to my Araucana's, in large fowl. I have chocolate in my Serama's and that sounds like a real stretch but my solid chocolate Serama hen is on the larger side and I found recently, from a chick that hatched last week, that my rooster, T-Roo may be a split for chocolate too. Bred together they should have only produced black cockerels that were split for chocolate, no chocolate pullets so none of the chicks should have been chocolate but I got chocolate.

So, I put my smallest LF Araucana hen with T-Roo. She's (PeeWee) wild type in color but I wanted to see what they produce since she's one of my few Araucana hens not presently setting. A chocolate split roo should produce 25% chocolate pullets and 25% chocolate cockerels to any color hen if this is sex linked chocolate and should be since it's Serama so we'll see. PeeWee much larger than a bantam but small for LF. She's double tufted (small tufts) and rumpless and lays a gigantic, very blue egg. Oddly, her eggs are larger than most of my large fowl eggs.

I'll keep you all posted here with photo's and outcomes. Since I am waiting for a couple of black and blue cockerels to grow up, I figure since I don't presently have a solid black or blue roo for my 4 black hens that I might as well use these hens in this project and may try artificial insemination if needed. They are pretty close to the size standard for large fowl Araucana hens but not quite there. T-Roo is a C sized rooster so he's not the teeny little guy many Serama's are either. I'll definitely have some issues to over come, such as size, but I know this is a project that will take a few years......don't they all though?? I may get a couple of black bantam hens for some chocolate bantams too but not till next year when I have hatched enough chocolate cockerels for extra hens. We'll see, I'll probably only hatch pullets now,

Any that make the cut will go into a separate pen and the black hens used will go back to the regular pen for blacks with their young roosters in the spring next year and I'll work on some better quality and some of those will be helpful later on to improve the chocolate pen.

I have raised a few Serama/Araucana cross chicks and even got a rumpless pullet from my partial tailed bantam hen that I used to have. I gave that pullet to Ruthless, another BYC member and Serama breeder, and she's been a little fertile myrtle for Ruth, lol. She's been breed to Ruths black barred Serama rooster. I have found the cross to be very nice. They have some similarities that I think are helpful, both breeds have a short back so rumpless will be easy to get. I haven't tried a tufted Araucana to a Serama so we'll see. Also, the leg colors are the same, yellow skin. My chocolate hen has yellow skin, swarthy legs but the roosters is paler. Just more to work on but I can work on it.........hey! A black Araucana chick just popped out of the egg, I can hear the cheeping from the other room

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to have my projects for the next year already defined and chicks hatching this year to help get it rolling. If anyone has input regarding my project pen, I'm always open to learning.

 

[smoothmule]

Here is a really cool color down on one of my chicks. I have no idea what color it will feather out but it just glows.

 

[smoothmule]

Here are a couple more of the June hatchlings that produced most of my tufted/rumpless chicks. I think some of these really neat pale colors came from LuvDove so they may be some sort of pale blue with dark blue spots like a splash but not? Many of these were clean faced but just very pretty colors.

Penguin

So you can see why I'll miss my unusual colored chicks

I do know I'll still get some "other color" chicks until I have more generations for the solid colors so that will be interesting too.

 

[smoothmule]

Here are the Serama's I'll use in my chocolate Araucana project. I should have first generation chicks by fall for sure.

Rooster, T-Roo, possible chocolate carrier. He was 10 months old in this photo. He looks smaller here than he really is. I think the substantial chest the Serama has will also be good for keeping the solid weight on the crosses too.

Here is the hen, Truffles.

Here is their first chick hatched, looks like it might end up a solid chocolate and I'm hoping it's a cockerel. Since the tail feathers aren't showing on this chick yet, I look at the general conformation of this chick and can see it might be a decent cross.

 

[Quirky]

Oooh, thanks for sharing your projects. I look forward to following the chocolate project.

I like reading about how people focus their breeding goals. It sounds like you will be able to concentrate your energies better with the move away from BBR/Duckwing colors.

I have no idea what colors will shake out best from the three birds I have, but blues are my favorite.

I want to share a second-long video of Gomez's crowing attempts. You can't see how gorgeous he is, but you can appreciate his pipes for sure:

 

[smoothmule]

I'd love to watch but with slow dial up, I can't do the video's