Araucana thread anyone?

[smoothmule]

Congrats to Rob! No matter where they started, that is a great job and it's his success

Cathy

 

[smoothmule]

I hadn't been taking many photo's lately so to start catching up, I snapped a couple of my hen setting.

This is India, check out her tufts

Here is her hatching buddy, Velvet

Neighbors

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Perfect tufts! And nice egg color there in the nesting box,

 

[kec5105]

Congrats Rob! I got 16 eggs from Beth G. on Friday and they looked great. They were packed well and most have their air cells intact. I can't wait to see what I get! I also picked up 3 pullets, a cockerel and an unknown sexed chick from HinkJC a fee months ago that I have pictures of that I have been meaning to post...some very pretty tufted white girls

 

[smoothmule]

Thanks Megan

She has really improved this summer. She was, frankly, just so-so of a hen this spring. She's filled out more and her tufts have really come in nice this time. Several of my other hens have started to molt so I'll wait to do the deep cleaning for fall until the big feather drop has completed,

Nothing like doing it twice, done that and it's a pain.

I am going to have to buy a few good leg bands for these black hens if I hope to be able to identify them in the spring. Lined up, I really can't tell one from the other, except for India with those tufts. I have some tufted black chicks that I have hopes for the coming spring. I'm really hoping for a good rooster and one of India's chicks just might be the one. It's still a bit young but it's double tufted like hers and a couple stray tail feathers like her and looks like it might be a cockerel. My other black hens are totally rumpless so he would be great to cover them then I'd just need a really good, clean faced/rumpless black rooster for India. I want 2 breeding pens for blacks, 2 for whites and one for the odds and ends that I can't seem to make myself sell yet.

 

[Illia]

TUFT ENVY right there!!!

 

[smoothmule]

Illia,
Too funny

and thanks. She's my only tufted black hen so far but I have some tufted black chicks so I have some hope. I need a really good rooster for her.

I have to pick your brain here, I have a cockerel that I think should be showing more duckwing color and he's still in juvenile feathering. He's already even got the pointed saddle hackles like a rooster and he's good sized. I may just be off here but I thought Columbo feathered out a lot earlier to mature feathers. I'll probably get a shock one day soon and see him totally changed but something seems odd about this guy.... What do you think?
This is a photo taken last month but this guy still has the same feathering

 

[Illia]

Looks like a Gold Duckwing male with Columbian. (why he's got white on the underside and excess white on the rest of the body)

 

[flowerchild59]

Wow, I have some serious tuft envy going on now.

 

[Rumbull]

Second round of 6 eggs in the incubator and once again I have only gotten 3 to hatch. The chicks have died in the shell. They are fully formed but the yolk had not been absorbed. I read that the yolk begins to draw in starting on the 18th day. I am getting 11 out of 12 to hatch with the barnyard mix eggs that were put in with them again. Is there a chance that the roo is tufted and they were plucked before I got him? He was in a small pen with 3 other boys. That still would not explain half of them dieing? My incubator has a fan. I am keeping the humidity at 35% and then 40% at hatch. The air sack was quite large when I opened the eggs but I also let them go 24 days before giving up.
Any thoughts?