Araucana thread anyone?

[cashdl]

It is an egg color chart. You can get it at the Araucana Club website. Go to the store and its there. I think it is $3.00


The Ameraucna Club also has one that is similar.


Lanae

 

[smoothmule]

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I've offered one of my double tufted/rumpless blue pullets at auction if anyone is looking to start the spring out right

http://www.showbirdauction.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.pl?action=dispcat6

 

[cmsdvm]

Quote:
She is cute! You don't say if she is bantam or LF. Blue is an accepted variety in bantams only, so I assume she is bantam, as you mentioned show potential?

 

[smoothmule]

Cindy,
Bella is a large fowl Araucana. I guess I should have added AOV show potential. I have more in the incubator now and my chicks have just been getting better with each generation so I'm very excited about the coming spring. I know there are some breeders working on blue for the large fowl. If there are enough working on them, when it comes time to consider adding blue to the approved varieties I'll still have some of my own. Seems like most of my double tufted have been blue.

 

[cmsdvm]

Yes, we were just discussing with Dick Dickerson at Crossroads the near impossibility of ever getting new varieties added. especially in the large fowl. The APA and ABA organizations essentially gave us the accepted varieties we do have- hence the discrepancies: such as Silver being accepted ABA but Silver Duckwing being accepted APA. It would be nice to neaten these up, add a few varieties like blue, but given the nature of araucanas, it's all but impossible. In order to get blue accepted by APA, for instance, you would need 10 breeders and 50 show quality blues to show up at an APA National. I doubt there are 50 show quality LF blues in the nation, all in condition, at any one moment in time- let alone getting everyone to travel to the same place, so you see the problem. Alas, better to concentrate on the varieties currently accepted for, barring a miracle, there aren't going to be any more.
It's also good to explain "AOV" to potential buyers. Many new people pay big bucks for a bird (NOT just sniping at you, by the way, but at many araucana breeders out there) only to find that their pretty tufted AOV bird can never go higher than Best AOV Araucana. True, my son did once win Ch. Continental with his Tollbunt Polish, but the judge was incorrect- he gave him the award because there were no other Continentals and it was a Youth Show, but that isn't really how it's done. If someone says, "Oh, I just love the tufts and that bird is going to be lovely strutting around my yard," that's another thing entirely. Or, if someone just wants to show off a pretty araucana at a fair, to people who've never seen one- an AOV bird is great for that too. But, if you hope to ever win something....best leave the AOV birds home.

 

[cmsdvm]

This is another reason we would LOVE to see dedicated breeders actually concentrate on producing birds with an approved color pattern. In no other breed to people just throw all these different colors in a pen and just label what comes out: Oh, look: this one is a silver duckwing with a white breast, oh, a blue columbian- come on!!! Do you think there's an Old English Game bird breeder on the planet who operates that way? No chance! If you're breeding silver duckwings- breed SD's only- work on improving your color pattern to the standard with all the clean faced birds. Work, work, work at correct color, as well as type, until, when you do get that perfect double tufted chick- it actually fits the standard! That's why the aracuanas that actually win at shows are generally white or black- easy colors to work with- but a lot of us would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see someone work on actually producing colored birds that fit the standard. Karen in California is one of the only people I know actually doing this-she's an expert on the BBRed pattern. That's my challenge to you people who like colored birds (I'm actually a white fanatic- white chickens, white pigeons, white dogs, white horses, white cars... you get the idea) but if color is your thing- let's see some of you breed a really GOOD colored araucana. I, for one, can't wait to see one.

 

[cashdl]

Quote:
I agree with you Cindy on most of what you said. I have a fear that the duckwing varieties which is my first love will just disappear because they are not worth the hassle to people. Where other breeds have the same color issues, they don't have to worry about being rumpless, then having symetrical tufts once everything else is worked out. Karen, really has some beautiful birds, but she is only working with bantam and the approved BBR variety. She is working on bantam Mille Fleur and I think making great improvements. I can't wait to see what she has at the show next month. I have been working on the duckwing varieties for several years now and can only say I am getting closer to body type. I understand why people go to the other color varieties, lets face it the Araucana looks great no matter what color it is wearing. It is such a struggle with the color varieties that it is easy to get sidetracked by something that looks pretty but doesn't have a standard, and so no one can say that the color is incorrect or the leg color doesn't go with the color. We can just keep calling them project birds. Also the Araucana is so much more than just any one color variety. While the SOP has limited us to only a few color varieties, it doesn't mean that, that is all we should have. Its not the same as throwing birds in a pen and calling the varieties what ever we want. The blue does have an approved color in other breeds, so does the cuckoo, the birchen, Red Pyle and so on. Just because they are not approved in our breed does not make a person a non dedicated breeder if they want to see if they can get the Araucana to match the SOP in other colors, even if it means that color will never be approved. I do have a nice AOV roo that has done decently at the shows, but only for showing how beautiful an Araucana is. Like you say, I really can't win with him. But it doesn't make him any less beautiful of an Araucana. I have a nice son out of him that has a better body type and so I have decided to sell him.

Then there are my duckwings. I think this year coming up, I will be able to hatch something that is closer to the standard out of these guys. Here is hoping.

I decided to sell my white roo also, since white is not a color I want to be working on. I sold all of my cuckoo hens last week. My white roo throws cuckoo, so if anyone wants to work on that variety let me know. He is a beautiful bird, and he is a show quality bird as long as your not going up against Steve Waters Birds.

Are you sending birds next month? You have such nice birds, I enjoyed looking at them last year. Is Steve Waters coming down this year? I hope so.


Lanae

 

[welasharon]

Could someone tell me what color to refer to these as?

sharon

 

[cackleberrycoop]

The day I pour sweat, money and long, hard, cold winter days into raising and breeding some uninteresting (to me) color variety of a bird that I fantasize about in another color is going to be a very frigid day in you know where..... If I was convinced that breeding such a small genetic pool of birds toward the very limited standard SOLELY was healthy, I would feel differently, but there is little doubt in my mind that the breed at large is benefiting from this recent rise in interested backyard breeders all across the continent. Please be careful; too much pressure to conform this early in the game will only lead to potential relevant breeders walking away with a distaste for the Araucanas. Breed towards the standard, by all means - follow that voice that leads you to better the breed as you see fit, but as long as we are all honest, honest, HONEST about what we are working on and towards, the joy that this breed is capable of giving should continue to drive it's progress from many different approaches.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

Quote:
Sharon - that first girl is a lovely blue. From her hackle feathers, she looks like she is carrying a patterning gene, which is really sort of exciting to me, as I have in mind that I need to figure out how to introduce that to my BBS line. I love the way it outlines the feathers in a darker lacing color. We need that in our blues. However, it does suggest to me that she may have other color varieties in there than blue and perhaps will not breed true. Is she large fowl or bantam, by the way? She has a really nice face.