Araucana thread anyone?

[cashdl]

My understanding is he has Large Fowl. No need to be afraid. He was great. Made me feel like one of the gang. I have his card around here somewhere, but Gary can possible give you his contact info. Never mind. I will send you a message with the contact info. I found it as I was typing.


Lanae

 

[cashdl]

Lucy, I have been gone for a bit and was just reading over posts I had missed. I am so sorry about your splash girl. Question? Had she started laying yet. I have found that every once in a while a pullet will die at about the age when I would expect them to start laying. Many times there is nothing you could have done. This is one of the most difficult breeds of chickens I have ever had, with the exception of silkies and marans. Those two breeds don't like me. I have yet to get babies to get older than 2 weeks for silkies and 5 months for marans pullets. ARGH! My remaining marans pullet was eaten a couple of weeks ago. I have given up on those two breeds, and even though the araucana are challenging, I love love love them.


Lanae

 

[cashdl]

So I am officially done hatching for the winter. First time in 4 years that I will not be hatching year round. My poor husband is beyond giddy at the prospect of not hearing peep peep peeping at all hours cause they are in the house for the first 4 weeks.

I have slowly been getting my priorities straight on what birds and colors I am moving forward with. I am finally getting some really nice tufted duckwing pullets in both silver and golden. I think I even have a nice double tufted roo chick. If it turns out to be a girl even better. So far I have 4 tufted duckwings and 3 cleanfaced duckwings that I am keeping. I have a nice bbr pullet that will go in the duckwing pen also.

Now that I have decided to stop with the splash breedings, I started hatching splash chicks. I have 3 or 4 super nice double tufted chicks, not sure on gender. I sold my tufted cuckoo roo chick because I had a cleanfaced one I could put in with my tufted cuckoo hens. But then I am pretty sure that my clean faced cuckoo roo chick is actually a pullet. Time will tell. I have a few other nice double tufted roos that I have wanted to keep but probably should get rid of because they are not duckwings and that is really what I need to focus on.


I probably should pair them with cleanfaced pullets and sell them.

Megan, I nearly killed your entire blue pen today when I was putting a roof on it. Scared me half to death. None of them even got a scratch, but there little lives passed before my eyes! LOL! There has been so many times I have thought about moving them to another pen because their roof was just a tarp, but I havn't because I didn't want to stress them out or have them get sick because they didn't like there new pen as much as their old one. So what do I do, try and kill them. I got the roof on and we are ready for the rains that are coming.

So I think that is all the news I have to date. Have a great evening all.

Lanae

 

[smoothmule]

Kec5105,
Very cute, nice chicks! The blacks are based on a different gene, I think the better blacks I have are coming from the ones with the yellow on the face and belly.

Megan, Congrats on your win at the show! We need pictures

Lanae,
Good to hear something from you! I was wondering how things were going, especially with your duckwings. Will you be selling any hatching eggs? I sold my young duckwing rooster, Columbo, to Heather in Maine and he is with some nice tufted Duckwing girls so you may want to talk with her in a few months. He was the nicest duckwing I've produced. His legs were yellow but Heather's hens all have green to willow legs. He weighed in at 5 pounds at 9 months so he's still got some maturing to do and will be a nice big roo for her. I had lost my tufted chicks that I planned to keep for next year so I changed my plan to stop hatching and already have almost as many chicks with tufts/rumpless as I had lost so I don't feel quite so far behind now and more in the incubator. When the hens stopped laying and went to moult, I wormed them all and then gave them some probiotics and vitamins to get them going again and I'll be hatching till I'm tired of it this winter. I have cages and brooders in the garage now and it's heated so I'm ready.

I also moved some Serama's to the garage already and that gave me 2 more wire pens outside so since they weren't laying and hadn't had the vents trimmed for a while, I selected some for breeding trio's and some are laying again. I have Joker, the blue dickwing, with my 2 duckwing hens. I think this is the cross that made Columbo. Rudy has Beauty and Sandy and PeeWee, my BBR hens. Casper has 2 nice, large, blue hens. He's got blue in his background so we'll see. Degas has the black hens and black pullets. And, Blanco has the 2 white hens and 4 nice white pullets that have not begun laying but could lay before winter. So, I think I have them matched right. Not every pen has tufts now but they are better matched for correct color and if I get some really good chicks, I'll work on the tufts issue with them in the spring.


I sold the 2 blue chicks so I have the 2 white chicks, both rumpless, one single tufted. They are for sale and soon after that I will have another blue chick and 2 splash that will be old enough to ship. I have not advertised them yet on any auction but the 2 whites are old enough to ship now.

 

[yanmar1610d]

Lost 5 of my little 3 month old Araucana chicks last week to a Killer Monster Possum. I had 17 in the pen I am now down to 12. I thought I had made a secure pen when I built it only to find out that the Monster was getting in a gap in the wire I had used to cover the top of the run with. I fixed the gap this weekend and set up a live trap with cat food and sardines as bait to trap the Killer Monster Possum in. Well last night after I got home from Church the Monster was caught in the trap. In an effort to make sure that he would not kill any more chickens I had to sentence him to Possum Heaven. Hope that there are not anymore of them out there that want to kill little innocent Araucana Chicks. Some of the chicks killed even had tuffs......

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Thank you Lanae - I've sent an e-mail off to him.

Done hatching huh??? Well, we'll see how long THAT lasts........

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
I am so sorry!!!!! Rotten, rotten, stinky rotten possum.

Did it take the chicks or just kill them? It always makes me so much more angry when they kill a group of chickens and just leave the dead behind. So glad that you caught the thing - way to go.

 

[Illia]

Quote:
Yep, that Josephine!

Sadly of the three, the chick I wanted from her passed away.

But, in great news, she's now laying again!! Can't wait to collect. . .


So far the silver Duckwing girl's babies look like a blue-gold duckwing girl, a BBR/gold duckwing girl, and the silver tufted boy.


Congrats everyone with their chicks, love the tufts! I'm setting another batch real soon. I'm hoping to sell again but right now all I get is 6 eggs a week. Josephine will help that issue though

Smoothmule - Looks possibly barred, but more likely just a dark blue with lacing, hiding something else. (duckwing most likely) - Blues hiding a gene often first feather out with weird dark or mossy patterns, then it disappears.

 

[hinkjc]

Quote:
Your chick looks blue or blue mottled. Very cute!

 

[kec5105]

Araucana lesson number one...don't get too attached....my "lav" chick is no longer walking and has a fairly severe case of pasty butt. When I saw him this morning henwas happy and healthy and I just got home from work and he is a mess. I cleaned up his bum and put him in a place where he can eat and drink without too much difficulty but he didn't seem to want to do either so we'll see what morning brings