Araucana thread anyone?

[welasharon]

Quote:
Too funny Illia but sad as well. I live in a very rural area in North Florida...most people here have expendable chickens. One of my students was absolutely positive that they never kept a chicken over a year as "they stop laying eggs by then." The concept of pure bred, non-hatchery chickens was as foreign as the Spanish I was trying to teach them.

 

[suzannaski]

It is totally frustrating that people think they have Araucanas. Even my dog vet says he has them, and that he was surprised when they layed pink and speckled eggs instead of green. (He said they were rumpless, though, so go figure)

But over to Quirky's question- Lanae (Cashdl) has the best instructions for incubating Araucana eggs. I was successful when I followed them the first time I ever incubated.
This has been my experience so far, and I am on my third hatch in a home-made incubator:
Shipped eggs will have lower hatch rates than local eggs. My first attempt incubating my own eggs with Lanae's instructions gave me 100% success! (these were Araucana/Ameraucana eggs)
Also, if your temps are a little on the low side, add a day or two to your expected hatch date. In fact, give yourself an extra day (22 instead of 21) on the due date regardless, so that you are less inclined to think you killed them all if/when they don't hatch on day 21. My chicks hatched out on day 24, because I was so worried that I was going to overheat them (my heater was not consistent and would spike to 105 without warning) that I kept the temp betwee 95 & 98.
Also, keep in mind how a broody hatches her eggs. She will get off the nest for a short time to grab a bite to eat or stretch her legs. She doesn't stare at a hygrometer, worrying about humidity. The temperature under her does fluctuate without hurting her babies.
I guess what I am saying is that totally constant temp & humidity is not crucial to a healthy hatch. If the temp drops to 95-96 for an hour, or if it spikes to 103-104 for an hour, you didn't blow it.
Oh, and the dry hatch method is pretty awesome, because in New England, the ambient humidity is the same as the dry hatch, so it's really hard to mess that up.
I may have gotten lucky, I'm not sure. Maybe more experienced hatchers can add to this.

 

[cashdl]

Josh,

I love your mottled araucana. I wish they came in large fowl. I have seen the Mcgraws but they mostly have tails and none have tufts. If only I had time for another project. It seems everytime I have a batch of chicks hatch, another color pops out that I want to work with. Right now it is the brown reds. I am also working on getting my barreds darker and more defined.

The araucana is such a funny bird. It seems every day they make me laugh. The other day I went outside to find one of my babie roos chasing a robber jay. He seriously did not like that bird. Everytime it tried to land on the ground, he was after it. I have a pullet that seems to have A. D. D. She will be walking along eating when suddenly, her head pops up, she looks around and races off like she forgot an appointment. Then a few minutes later she does it again. The other birds keep a wary eye on her. They don't know when she will bolt for it and it startles them.

I am still working on my book. My computer crashed in the end of May and scrambled some stuff, so I am slowly putting it back without much enthusiasm. I have stopped selling birds for now. Maybe next year. I couldn't seem to stop selling my nicest chicks. Quirky ended up with one of them. LOL! I need to keep some for myself for next year, so I am keeping them all till I am absolutely sure I don't want them.

Hope everyone else is doing good. Illia, Nice to hear from you again. We have missed you.

Lanae

 

[josh44]

Theses are mottled and the magraws sorry if I spelled it wrong

Are spangled as in hamburgs.

Yeah I know what you mean there are lots of projects I'd like to try out but don't have time or space.
New project at my place is breeding more silver duckwing Asil & trying to get white sumatras.

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
What are Magraws?

 

[zekii]

Josh Wow !! I wish that color was available in LF ...

Quote:

 

[josh44]

They're to my knowledge they're just a silver spangled birds that lays blue eggs.
Think hamburgs were originally used to make the mcgraw but don't quote me on it.

 

[Quirky]

I am still working on my book.

Is it a book about Araucanas? Someone needs to write a good one.

I confess I'm thrilled to have one of Lanae's better birds. He's really the apple of my eye (livestock-wise, anyway).​

 

[cashdl]

Yes a book about Araucana. I wouldn't say it is a good one but it will have lots of pictures and breed info.

Lanae

 

[suzannaski]

So, I contacted Greenfire Farms to see if they would send me a sample of these "infamous" blue eggs from the Cream Legbars, and they are sending me a sample ! Yahoo!
Can't wait to see how they compare with the Arauacana/Ameraucanas.

On a sad note, yesterday one of my 15 week olds was having so much fun playing in a puddle that I let him stay there while I put everyone in the run for suppertime. I was going to put him in last. Needless to say, I ended up running late for class and never put him in and now he's gone. I'm sad, but more than that I am so angry with myself that my forgetfulness was deadly to my flock. Mum says to look on the bright side, I was going to have to get rid of him one way or another, and also that now we know for certain that the predator that killed my babies last month is still lurking.
I'm just so mad at my careless self.

ps- Quirky, I'm jealous.