Araucana thread anyone?

[puredelite]

Sega, Nice pics of your little peeps! No doubt you are super proud of the tufted one. They have a look about them that is unique, unlike any other little chickie. Here's hoping you have an even greater hatch tonite...

 

[Stacykins]

Sega, congrats on the hatch! Those chicks all look wonderful, and the tufted one is especially cute! How many did you hatch once they were all done hatching?

I just moved my older batch of chicks out to the chicken coop. They're in a large dog crate to acclimate. Hopefully it won't be big and scary for long! They grow up so fast!

 

[sega]

The last set of 32 eggs only hatched out 16 little chicks. Two died shortly after they hatched. I now have 14 and one of them has something wrong with it. It can not hold its head up for some reason. There are a few with tuffs. I will take some pics of one that is really cute. It has yellow tuffs on a mainly black body. The 16 eggs that did not hatch had full size little chicks in them when I check them after they did not hatch out. All of the chicks inside the eggs that did not hatch where dead. I have got to figure out what I am doing wrong. I thing the humidity is the problem, but I am not sure. I am using a LG and a Brower TopHatch to hatch out these little Araucanas. Humidity in the LG during lockdown stays around 70% and the TopHatch just over 50%. Temps in both incubators always stays around 99.5 - 100.5, so I don't think the temp is the problem.

 

[cashdl]

Just me but I would try incubating at 25% humidity or as close as you can get, than raise humidity to about 45% for hatching. I have found that my hatch rates went way up in my LG when I did that. I found that too high of humidity is not good.

Lanae

 

[Stacykins]

Aww, sorry about the losses. Hopefully the rest of the chicks are nice and healthy, and the one who isn't doing well recovers!

 

[Rumbull]

Hi, I'm new to aracaunas but have spent several months reading this entire thread and others. I have a pullet with tufts and a tail and a roo that is rumpless and clean faced. I know I will have to make several posts before I can add pictures so I am going to use a few of them up here introducing myself.

 

[Rumbull]

My name is John. I live in SW Missouri and last year they passed a chicken friendly ordinance in my city so I built a coop and hatched a few eggs from my mother’s mixed flock . Her “araucanas” (Easter Eggers) have always been my favorite with their blue/green eggs but it was December and they were not laying. We wanted a Christmas hatch for our 3 yr old son. I found this BYC and began to educate myself about EE/Ameraucana/Araucana. I have to admit that the Ameraucana sounded like the better choice because of the lethal tuft and infertility problems with the Araucanas. I started looking for AM chicks to add to the 4 chicks I hatched. Couldn’t find any in January but came across some araucana on Craigslist and went to look at them. I’m embarrassed to say that I told the guy I wanted blue eggs but did not want the problems so can I have chicks with tails and no tufts! A breeders dream, the perfect customer, preferring the culls!!! I took home 3 chicks that were several weeks old. If only I could go back in time and pick the best chicks he had.

 

[Rumbull]

I ended up with a blue pullet that died a month later. She had the neatest cooing song that she would sing. I have never heard a chicken make that sound. The second was a silver duckwing cock with clean face and tail. I donated him to my mother barnyard flock. He is gorgeous! I realize, a tailed roo is not what you want for breeding but his tail is magnificent! The third chick, I still have. She is tailed but has nice tufts. She is what I will describe as red breasted splash. She is very petit and lays a bluegreen egg everyday even in the 100 temps we have been having here. I love her. I have caught araucanas fever and the challenge that you all go through has intrigued me. Several weeks ago, I found a blue rumples roo and added him to our little flock (BR, FBCM, EE and our araucana). It is a lot of effort because I have to bring him in each night so the neighbors don’t complain about 5am crowing. You’re not supposed to have rooster. I will be incubating some of her eggs this next weekend.

 

[Rumbull]

I am drawn to the Blue Black Splash birds. It allows the color variety in the flock while staying in the same color genes. As an inexperienced observer, there seems to be a lot of color mixing amongst the small hobby breeders. I have to assume it is the pursuit of the tufts that encourage this. The typical scenario seems to play out something like this… You may want white birds but your white roo and pullets are clean faced so you use the duckwing roo because he has tufts. It’s a tossup, are you better off with pure white birds if none of them are tufted or white with colors bleeding through but at least they have tufts. Everyone has to start somewhere and you just do the best with what you have. I’m sure that is why my splash pullet has a red breast. Any of you care to guess what her parents would have been? I will post pictures when they allow me to do so. She has a rust colored breast and throat into her tufts. Her body is white with a touch of red showing up as lacing on the white intermixed with the typical blue/grey feathers of a splash pullet. She does have nice willow legs.
(I won't usually post this much, just wanting to get them in so I can add pictures)

 

[flowerchild59]

to the forums. Where in SW MO are you located?