Araucana thread anyone?

[happyhensny]

I just got an email from the breeder who bought a couple of pullets from me and I sent her 6 eggs in with the pullets. 4 are hatched out now, the 5th pipped and not sure about number 6 but not done waiting. I think that is pretty awesome odds for shipped eggs.

Those are wonderful odds! Congratulations to you and the breeder lucky enough to have those chicks!

 

[smoothmule]

She has a white, 2 black (one of those may be birchen) a "cinnamon" colored one and the 5th is pipped only so I haven't heard more yet.

 

[Stacykins]

Well, looks like one eBay seller who got some flack for selling mutts under the Araucana name is up to some new tricks. You know how it was pointed out that there with no photos of tufted birds (despite claims of having them) and lots of pics of muffed and bearded EEs, and one rumpless bird? Look at the very last picture. It is tiny, and very nice compared to the others. Suspicious? I knew I'd seen it elsewhere. It was stolen from this website, on their Araucana page. So that eBay seller, to better scam others, just did a quick google search, saved the best pic (and didn't even blow it up to its proper size

), and used it on their eBay listing.

I hate art theft, it just burns me up. I emailed the website owner pointing it out. If it were my picture, I'd be on the warpath!

 

[poularde]

That is terrible. Someone should not be able to get away with stealing other peoples work.

 

[Stacykins]

The photo owner just emailed me back, it is definitely theirs and the eBayer did not have permission to use it!

 

[Illia]

This is my reaction to that auction, especially the description -

So, grabbing some green legged Easter Eggers claimed to have recognizeable colors but clearly don't by the photos, then crossing them with a rumpless beardless bird . . . . Makes both Ameraucanas and Araucanas? And still yet somehow those pump out green and olive/brownish/golden green eggs?

I think I'm gonna go get an Irish Setter, breed it with a dog that looks like a Pug, and I know, I just know, I'll make $$ because half the litter will be purebred pugs and half will be Irish Setters.

 

[eggdd]

i don't think this is the case with this specific individual as she's had conversations with folks from here (but who knows for sure), but some people don't know. they buy "araucanas" from a source and then sell them as "araucanas". it's a cycle.

just wanted to point out that maybe some folks are not intentionally trying to mislead.

 

[cashdl]

There are alot of people who don't know what a real Aracauna is. I spent the day of the Stockton poultry show manning the Araucana Club booth. I had pictures of real Araucana, and several copies of the newsletter with Araucana pictures displayed. I had label cards put on the show cages identifying the Araucanas in the cages for all to see.

That being said, I heard well over 30 people say, "oh Araucana, we have some of those at home", or " We used to have Araucana but our feed store stopped carrying them, so I couldn't get them last year". Now there were those who stopped by to learn about the Araucana, but most people were incapable of looking at a real Araucana and an Easter Egger side by side and being able to tell the difference. Most people don't really care. A Chicken is a chicken is a chicken. All they know is Araucana lay blue eggs, so every chicken that lays a blue egg is an araucana. Makes perfect sense if you are not interested in breeding or showing chickens, you just want the blue eggs.

Now for those that are truly interested in getting the real Araucana, they may buy the mislabeled hatching eggs, but once they determine that they have been had, they will have learned a valuable lesson hopefully. In order to succeed at anything, you need to do your homework. When I first got what I thought was Araucana, I didn't care what they looked like, I just wanted the blue eggs. It was only after one of my hens laid a brown egg that I thought something may be wrong. I started doing research and became hooked on this funny dorky little chicken. I think most people are like I was back then. I wasn't in love with the Araucana per se. It was the blue eggs I wanted. Now I want it all. Many people still wont care as long as they are getting chickens that lay blue eggs.

We can't stress about what everyone else is selling especially since this person obviously doesn't care that they are being misleading. Maybe they do have tufted chickens as they say. Maybe their chickens are camera shy and it was just easier to steal a photo of someone elses. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to stop them from selling their mutts. We can just be there if someone tells us their tale of woe about buying what they thought were araucana, and help them get some real araucana.

The weird thing is sometimes I am more angry at the people who allow themselves to be mislead than I am at the ones doing the misleading. I didn't originally go specifically looking for araucana, I was looking for blue egg chickens. The lady I got my birds from told me where she had gotten them and I went to where she said to go an bought what she said to buy, in order to get more blue egg layers. Simple enough. But there are those people who decide one day that they want real araucana chickens and then go to the feed store or buy them from a hatchery without, I don't know, looking online to see if there are pictures of them from different sources, maybe looking for a club website.

Maybe my thinking is wrong, but I am getting tired of beating a dead horse. People say they have Araucana when they see me at the shows. Fine. What do I care. They are happy with them and I am happy for them. Its those few people that are really interested in the real thing, that I am there for. They are the ones who have the questions for me. The others with the fake araucana, I am happy to talk chicken with them, and how pretty their chickens blue eggs are. It is no big deal, then they go home, after seeing a bunch of cool chickens and they still are happy with their birds they only want eggs from anyway. Why burst their bubble or make them feel like they have less of a bird. A chicken is a chicken to them.

Lanae

 

[Illia]

Oh I completely understand, I just don't like it when people spread the misinformation by selling under false claim, knowing it or not, especially at a price higher than the average feedstore chickens would go for. The fact that you're a breeder claiming to have experience in this said breed and selling it online, a place filled with information, that you somehow for some reason completely ignore, just irks me. How is it someone is a breeder, thus, having experience with this breed, yet knowing so little about it?

But again I still understand. Take a look at all the people out there who've been breeding other actual purebreds of hatchery stock for generations and claiming to know all about chickens. A couple months ago someone was saying that they've been breeding Buff Orpingtons all their life and that they cull out their hens who get bare or tattered backs because they believe it is the hen's fault, that she's too easy and willing, thus she gets a ruined back. Whaat?! Studies and true/wide experience have shown time again that worn backs are from two main things - 1) roosters who seriously favor a hen, doesn't matter her temperament and 2) roosters who are too tough to bother courting her first and getting her acceptance, instead, just being forceful. Plus there's 3) too few hens for one rooster or too many chickens in one area. - Which could likely be this guy's case but isn't always the case.

But, I didn't say anything in objection at the time because yeah, I understand, there's plenty out there who just don't step out of their own bubble.

 

[cashdl]

Sometimes I will mull over what people have said to me when they talk about their chickens and I will giggle to myself at some of the ignorance I hear. I am a 3rd generation chicken person, and my grandfathers family were chicken farmers in Ukraine, but I came to chickens later in life and what I know about chickens could literally be written on a 3X5 card. So if I am amazed by what people will do or say when it comes to chickens, its gotta be stupid.


That is why I love forums like this one and the others I belong to. I can sit and read and do research, so when I do talk about them hopefully I sound like I know what I am saying. So it mystifies me that in this age we live in where the world wide web is accessible to just about everyone, why do people not take advantage of it and do their research.

Lanae