Araucana thread anyone?

[cashdl]

My roos look like that as the feathers are coming in so I was not going to get it. Tempting as it may be pullet or not, I need to get serious about what I have here and narrow my focus. As I say that I am hatching out chicks from my blue pen and my cuckoo barred pen. The two colors that I am kicking around getting rid of.


Oh well. The best laid plans of a crazy chicken person.

Lanae

 

[Stacykins]

With all that awesome stock you have no wonder it is hard to decide on what to keep and what not to, Lanae! I personally LOVE the cuckoos I got from you, they are such pretty birds!

Though I think I am going to focus on the blacks n lavs, since I have a LOT of black birds. If anyone is interested in a tufted and tailed blue pullet, shoot me a PM. I have a few poultry shipping boxes now after a LONG wait. Actually gonna go glue in the filters now

 

[syble]

any breeders in the Wilkesboro North Carolina Area? I'm in need of tufted black/blue standards and i know a judge heading up from that way.

 

[suzannaski]

Stacykins, I would love that pullet, but thanks to Irene, I have some extra car repair bills. My deductable is $500.

That also is why I couldn't bid on Debi's eggs.
Wouldn't be so bad, except that I am still hurting from paying the deductable after an ice storm in Dec.
Wish me luck, I have a follow-up interview this afternoon.

 

[Stacykins]

Doh, that really sucks that now you have to pay two separate deductibles from unavoidable circumstances.

I listed the pullet with a cockerel as a pair in the 8 week old+ chicken section.

 

[Illia]

Well, my silver/golden duckwing chick is tailed. The BBR is rumpless. The blue is rumpless. So, out of three, I got a rumpless bilaterally tufted APA accepted color. Awesome!

My second batch is almost about to go into lockdown. . . So excited! I hope I get some real beauts. My second batch is 100% duckwings, silver and golden, however some will be blue (duckwings) too. I hope to get a really well tufted one. If not big tufts, I just want both tufts to be the same size, regardless of one flopping or not.


My third batch is on week 2 now, and, it looks like I might actually get a couple Cuckoos. My Cuckoo fertility is terrible right now, but, this is the first time I've actually gotten a fertile egg in months. Something right is going on.

 

[smoothmule]

Ray-N-Debi
I didn't see your auction for hatching eggs. What color Araucana's do you raise? LF or bantam? I'd love to do some swapping to add to the lines I have in my flock. There are several breeders here I'd love to swap with

I've been hatching out a few tufted/rumpless here and there. I've kept them back to see how they develop and will probably put one or two on the skyblue auction but I'd definitely consider swapping them for colors I'm working with (black and white at this time) I have a blue with huge tufts, rumpless and a couple of younger ones with double tufts/rumpless. I'd trade for a black of the same quality. I've collected several tufted/rumpless whites. Some are closer to standard than the others but they'll get to grow up here and we'll see how many I want to keep in the spring. I have a double tufted/rumpless that is chipmunk colored in down that's just starting to get some feathers in. I would love it to be a cockerel, I might just keep it if it's as nice marked as Columbo for duckwing. Columbo is sold and he's taking Slinky with him. I'm going to keep Squirrely Shirley around just cause. She's clean faced and tailed but produces only rumpless chicks so far. She looks more silver duckwing than gold but I just have a terrible time figuring out the hens that are BBR, duckwing, wild type and Wheaten. I can't tell them apart as chicks or adults

I haven't been posting much lately. I have been selling chicks and eggs right and left and I was busy packing eggs tonight. I have chicks hatching tonight too, 2 out so far. They were due to hatch late Tues or early Wed. I also have 2 hens that decided to set again after a proper rest. They had set through 3 sets of eggs for me this summer so I broke them all up from setting in that coop and they rested then went to laying again like crazy and now there are 2 hens setting and I figure the other black hen may go broody soon. So those girls are setting 10 or 12 each and my double tufted/rumpless white rooster is the only roo in the pen.

I guess I should update everyone on Blanco. He's the rooster I bought from Ann Charles that had the evil attitude. It took a while but he's gone from being in a wire cage with 3 hens to the main coop and he has 6 hens and numerous youngsters in his coop. I can go in and catch chicks, pick up hens to pet them, gather eggs etc and he just watches me. I never confront him and give him the respect he deserves and he's allowed me to do my business so we're "good". He's been great with the young chicks and clucks to them to come eat. He still doesn't like to be cornered but he's not tried flogging or confronting me and in the late evening, I can go out and pick him up and pet him and talk to him and he doesn't get his feathers in an uproar any more. His hens are my only 2 whites and 5 blacks since they don't have a black rooster yet anyway. Those chicks out of the black hens will carry white so they will be banded because I know some breeders would not want whites popping up in the blacks......however since I didn't hatch most of these layers and roosters, there's no telling what's in their backgrounds anyway. I do have some pretty decent up and coming black chicks, some tufted, not sure if cockerels yet and several good looking whites. I have some splash and blues that I'll be selling when I can sex them. Blanco seems to be pretty free with giving out his tuft gene so I'm anxious to see the next batches of chicks hatch out.

 

[Ray_n_Debi]

I have LF Araucanas and quite a few. I have 12 pens for them. I have spent the last 3 years hatching hundreds of eggs to get some nice breeding stock a lot of culling. As you well know it is always a work in progress. I don't have the coveted blue egg yet. I lost 3 double tufted rumpless to a hawk and I just lost 3 double tufted rumpless chicks during a storm. Even though they were locked in the coop (I wasn't home) they seemed to pile up and suffocated or trampled these guys. Just some bad luck recently.
I do have some of the best chicks from this summers hatches growing up and I am happy with what I see.
I have some lavender babies growing up (love that color!) they are about 3 months old now.

 

[syble]

where about's are you at? any tufted blacks available? lol

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
I had this problem more than once this year as well - We get massive summer thunder storms that blow through in about 20 minutes and and take an 80 degree day down to the sixties just like that. It seems to really confuse chicks who are in that annoying hyper chick age - about 6 to 9 weeks old. I would find piles of these babies in the strangest places in their runs and coops and I lost some from suffocation this way also. Very frustrating because I feel guilty, but on the other hand, I can only do so much babysitting. Of course, the chicks with their broody hens did just fine. I didn't loose any Araucana because I didn't have enough hatch out to loose, so, though I'm sorry for you that you lost those dble tufted babies, I'm also a wee bit jealous that you had them hatch out in the first place!




I have my two dbl tufted Araucanas cleaned up and ready to take to the fair. These are two of the three Araucana chicks who hatched for me this year (out of about 40 eggs that I set in the incubator, by the way). I wasn't going to bring the little rooster because he has a tail feather and a sloppy comb, but their father, Quincy, who I couldn't wait to show off at the fair, is nowhere to be seen yesterday and today. I'm sure that he is fine - only my Araucana do this disappearing act - one of my wilder hens disappears for weeks on end and has been doing this for years now. They are pretty safe out there, thanks to our guardian dogs. I'm sure Quincy will show up again tonight after I return home from entering the other chickens. I was so excited last May to enter him in the Spring Fling poultry exhibition, until he stuck his head through the breeding pen wire (less than a week before the show) into the Ameraucana pen and had is great big, beautiful tufts plucked, trying to fight with my Am rooster.

This is SOOOOOOOOO Quincy to take off just before the fair........