Araucana thread anyone?

Beautiful! I love the feather - is that the "cherry on top"?
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Hello,
I am looking for an Araucana breeder. I would like 5-10 chicks all pullets and POSSIBLY with 1 single rooster. I would like all different colors but must have the duckwing colors. I am looking for all rumpless CLEAN faced. I prefer the look of the clean face. I am not going to breed or show these birds so "pet quality" is fine . I just want egg laying pets. I live in Hamilton, GA 31811. Please email me if you can supply me with what I am looking for. Please let me know what you have, rough idea when I could get my order, how much your chicks cost and shipping rate.
THANK YOU for your time.
 
gg706,
Welcome to the group. You might try getting a couple here and there from several breeders here. My hens are laying like crazy and I can't set them all so I have offered a dozen for sale but I'm hatching eggs right now and have 2 from my white pen pipped that should hatch out by bedtime or later. The problem is trying to guarantee anyone that I can provide what you want in a period of time. You never know what your hatch rates will be with these guys and when the hens will just shut down for a while. There is a significant difference in the value of the chicks based on several things so they can range from $10 or $15 to ten times that by the time you can tell the sex of the chicks.

Unless someone has sexed chicks available now, the one's I'm hatching now may be 3 months before I can tell the sexes except for some of the duckwing/wild pattern tha tyou can tell sooner but they wouldn't be old enough to ship anyway. I generally get a lot of blues, some duckwing type, some bbr, whites and blacks. I sometimes get splash too. I'd sure try to put together some pullets for you that meet your needs for $15 each and a cockerel for $5 and they would be ready as soon as I could sex them in about 3 months. I don't know what your time frame is but most breeders are not even hatching yet. I pretty much sold all I had to sell in the fall then my hens moulted, I wormed them and they just recently began laying fertile eggs again. Shipping 10 chicks that are old enough to travel would require at least 3 boxes, $10 per box then whatever the shipping would be and in general, I've not shipped many that were less than $50 per box to ship. So, totals for 8 pullets and a rooster would be around $90 for the chicks, $30 for the shipping boxes and $150 for shipping at minimum for a grand total of $270 Even one more pullet and you would have to add another shipping box. I've found that you can only safely ship 3 per box.

If you're only wanting some pretty chickens, rumpless, multi colored that lay blue eggs, here is a thought that might be a whole lot cheaper. Most hatcheries sell Easter Eggers. They come in gorgeous colors, they lay colored eggs (blue to green and even pinkish). They are very hardy and great layers. If you bought a single, clean faced Araucana rooster that was rumpless you could hatch your own rumpless, colorful blue egg layers since the Araucana rooster might blue up the easter eggers eggs. You could even increase that by only setting the bluer eggs from the easter egger hens and you should have your pullets by fall if you could find some easter egger hens that suit you that are already laying this spring. If you found ready to lay pullets or hens, make sure they have pea combs if you want blue to green eggs. I have a couple of clean faced cockerels that are breeding right now that I might consider selling but they won't be as cheap as a chick since they're breeding already.

Someone else here may have just what you want, you also might check with Gary Ramey or Ray_n_Debi, they might be close enough to you for pick up which would save you a lot in shipping. Shipped eggs are another option. That wouldn't take any longer than waiting for someone to hatch them for you.

Cathy
 
Just hatched a big blue chick, absolutely filled the shell..hardly breathing room. The other egg wasn't pecking any more so I pipped it and it wasn't moving so I finished taking it out of the shell, it was dead, and it was tufted blue. This one isn't out enough to tell yet, I can't pick at it like I did the dead one. I hate losing even one. There's another due to hatch tomorrow and it still looks good so wish it luck.

Now, I can at least relax and get some dishes washed....yuck.....
 
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Wow, a Shamo/Araucana cross would be a very cool bird!

I am thinking Illia had one once...wasn't it?

Yep.
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One was even tufted. Sadly I had a cat at the time who suddenly had a taste in chicks, so the tufted one and a couple others were eaten. After that the cat went bye-bye, and I sold my remaining pullets to a neighbor. Haven't seen her birds though so I don't know if they're even still alive, but I'd hope so. Anyway, the whole cross was a complete accident, was hoping for purebred Araucanas, but they were indeed neat chicks! I got to see the pullets fully feathered but still pretty young. They were very much like a Thai game.
 
Yah! and Boo Hiss! for you Cathy. I am happy one hatched and sad that the tufted one died.


I have 1 that is half out ( yes I helped ) I have another one who is businly pecking away and a 3rd one that only cheeps thru the shell. I will leave it be for tonight but if its not out tomorrow it is fair game. LOL!


Lanae
 
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Thank You for the info....it was VERY helpful! I had no idea it would be that much $$$$ WHEW! So the 8 pullets and 1 rooster sexed is out of the question! I dont have any means of hatching any eggs. Do you sell day olds? I would like duckwing and then a good mixture of other pretty colors. I am not even particular about the number of chicks I could do with as little as 4 or 5 up to 10. I would be happy with whatever number that hatched as long as they were rumpless, clean faced and assorted colors, hopefully so I could tell them apart. I am not really particular about the time....heck I have waited 2 years to finally get somewhere I could even HAVE chickens....so whats a few months! I understand they have babies in their own good time. I would consider paying the high shipping prices to get 3 or 4 pullets, however I am a bit concerned about not getting a chance to really handle them as babies and get them used to the idea of being pet chickens. LOL!!I also think in doing that my kids would miss some the excitement of raising them up from babies. I did think about the EE. i was trying to avoid really breeding chickens as I have NO IDEA what I am doing. I dont think I could kill them for the freezer to cull out the unwanted birds. I will attempt to contact the other breeder you mentioned. Please let me know
Thank You!
 
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gg706,
I don't sell day old chicks. Most breeders don't ship day old Araucana chicks except maybe Gary Ramey but I have never been able to get anything from him so I quit trying. You might get lucky though. I know what you mean by preferring to raise them yourself. If you've never raised day olds, they are not so easy and you can easily lose one or all of them if you're not careful.

Have you tried just looking around your area for Araucana's, like craigslist etc? You could even get just one easter egger hen, buy a nice rooster that's breeding and let her set a batch of eggs for you. Keep the pullets and let her set more if needed. After that, just eat the eggs and enjoy your chickens.

Gotta be a way for you to get some rumpless chickens. I mean, everyone needs some
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gg706,

I did get a batch of 20 day olds from Ann Charles. I paid $200.00 plus shipping. I was happy to pay it. Unfortunately 6 died because the post office was slow shipping them and they arrived on a saturday, which happened to be a holiday. I managed to talk one of the delivery truck drivers into letting me in the post office and the two of us search the place till we found the chicks. Two months later I still have the 16 living chicks, all fat healthy and happy. Very friendly babies but I do handle them every day.

The only ones I know of that sell day old chicks is Gary Ramey and Ann Charles. Email them to get on their waiting list.



Lanae
 
Want Gary Ramey's chicks? Ya gotta bug him plenty and call him
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I had to bug him a lot, then call him.



Anyway, just throwing out a pictorial update on my small handful of birds. Going to hatch out some Araucanas this February, but right now I'm just watching chicks grow.


Here's my main man for now - "Cookies'n'Cream" - Blue cuckoo with lots of weird leakage. He's got some Olive Egger offspring right now, nice barred patterning on them, but no purebred offspring yet.

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Talking to one of the hens, "Josephine."

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Just check out that saddle!
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Cookies has an amazing, very full hackle as well as some nice, super-streaming saddle feathers. He's bigger and heavier than my other cock, Marango.


And, here's "Josephine Jr" (nickname for now) a young pullet.

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Here's Josephine's other daughter, a blue un-named pullet. Very nice body so far.

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Here's a (what I used to call BBR) gold duckwing pullet from Marango x my only silver duckwing hen. I love her, but, her back is getting to be shorter the bigger she grows.

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However she really does camouflage in our pastures!

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And last, here's my young cockerel from Marango and the duckwing hen. He's growing nicely, I'm now guessing he's a silver and not a pale golden.

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Tuft(s)

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I won't be keeping him though, even though the family right now thinks I will. He's Marango's son, and I'll keep the daughters but honestly I'm going to wait to get a Cookies son. I really don't like Marango's saddle and back, plus I want more breast in the offspring, so, I'll have a cuckoo cockerel in a couple months to replace him. Hopefully I'll hatch out a nice bilaterally tufted male. With that said, the colors here are indeed going to shift away from duckwing for a short while, and I'll end up with a lot of true Creles, which, honestly will be awesome. Plus with my two current Crele-esque colored roosters (non-Araucana) I'm learning the color REALLY blends in out here. Super for free-ranging/pasturing.
 

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