Araucana thread anyone?

[Puddin Fluff]

Lanae, What about breeding one that has a tail? I only ended up with two out of my hatch and the male has a beautiful tail. If I hatch eggs from the two, what are my chances of getting rumpless? The breeder I got the eggs from said he has very rarely had birds that developed a tail, so my boy is a little unusual for his line and he has been doing it for quite a while.

 

[banjoejoe4783]

LANAE- yes he have yelow legs but he was in MY breeding pen because of his EXALANT COLOR AND TYP and yelow legs are a resesive trait and can easly be fixed simply breed him to a hen with wilow/green legs and better them 75% would have the right leg color he is by far the most viberant and ritch BBR color roo i have ever seen so as a sereous breeder i can look past the yelow legs and see other potential

not all breeders think the same or breed the same and they insert diferant traits all the time as long as the goal is to improve the breed i told kasne before she got that roo that he had the wrong leg color

 

[Stacykins]

Hi all, I'm pretty new here. I have Araucanas-to-be (hopefully--they hatch next week!), and I've been slowly working my way through this thread (and taking notes as I go). I'm wondering if the Araucana standard of perfection is out there anywhere except for the big SOP for all the breeds. I find discussions of various aspects (like the leg color discussion above) here and there, but it would be helpful to see everything in one place. Also, I'm fairly well-versed in genetics in general, but I don't know much (yet) about poultry color genetics and I don't recognize all the colors by looking at them (like the wild type/wheaten/partridge example above). I'm wondering if there's a single publication/site somewhere that explains the action of the various color genes along with photos of each color?

Do any of you show at the Ohio Nationals in November in Columbus?

Also, back in 2010 (post #978, p. 98), smoothmule proposed creating a site where photos of everybody's stock were submitted over time so you could see how each chick developed. Did this ever happen?

I've seen lots of mention about the excellent temperament of this breed, especially the roosters. I'm working on housing for my yet-to-be Araucanas and I'm wondering how many roos you all keep together. I have a 6 x 8 shed-type coop and a big electronetted run (3200 square feet) that is occupied by a BIG hatchery Sussex roo and 9 girls, mostly Sussexes and Orps. Can I add the much smaller Araucanas to this group (my hatchery girls would raise them among the rest) or would they just get beat up? I also have a smaller 4 x 4 A-frame coop that I am going to get about 100 ft. of electronetting for. How many Araucanas would happily go in here, do you think?

And I've read enough to realize that I may be opening a can of worms here, but while I'm clear about the difference between Ameraucanas/EEs versus Araucanas, I'm pretty fuzzy about the differences between Ameraucanas and EEs. Anyone care to enlighten me?

By the way I LOVE this thread! All the photos are beautiful and there so much great info here. Thanks!

Kirsten

Your Araucanas will be fine with the flock. For example, my small duckwing hen beat the derp out of a BIG black copper marans girl yesterday (got too close to chicks). She is a feisty one, not aggressive to other chickens or people, except when she is broody and is with chick. But my Araucanas all assert themselves quite well. Size never really mattered with chickens, when it comes to flock hierarchy.

There is a big difference between Ameraucanas and EEs. Ameraucanas are an actual, APA recognized breed. They have standards of perfection and very specific description.

The EE however, is a mutt type bird that has the blue egg gene somewhere in its breeding past. The EE has no trait requirements, they might not even lay blue/green eggs! So they can be any color, have any comb, any leg color, beardless, muffless, lay any egg color, whatever. Hatcheries sell EEs, no mainstream hatcheries sell actual Ameraucanas or Araucanas, despite their advertizing.

 

[cashdl]

LANAE- yes he have yelow legs but he was in MY breeding pen because of his EXALANT COLOR AND TYP and yelow legs are a resesive trait and can easly be fixed simply breed him to a hen with wilow/green legs and better them 75% would have the right leg color he is by far the most viberant and ritch BBR color roo i have ever seen so as a sereous breeder i can look past the yelow legs and see other potential

not all breeders think the same or breed the same and they insert diferant traits all the time as long as the goal is to improve the breed i told kasne before she got that roo that he had the wrong leg color

I understand and was not picking on you, please understand that. But also understand that willow legs are sex linked and so females only carry 1 copy, which means that 50% of the roos from from a yellow leg roo to willow leg hen would have willow legs, and none of the pullets would have willow legs. Thats roughly 25% in the first generation.

Then breed a willow leg rooster from the first generation to a yellow leg hen and this is what R. Okimoto says about the 2nd gen.:

It would be best to find another willow shanked birds to cross into your line and cross a male willow to your hens. In this way all the hens will inherit id+ and have willow shanks that you can select right away and all the males will have yellow shanks, but carry id+ (Idid+). When you cross the hybrids together you will get 1/2 yellow shanked birds and 1/2 willow shanked males and females.

He is saying that the easiest way is to cross willow leg rooster to yellow leg hens, not the other way around. However if you breed a yellow leg rooster to willow leg hens then choose your willow leg rooster from the offspring and go from there.

This all points to Willow legs being easier to get rid of because they are dominant ( which means visible, if a bird does not appear to have willow legs, then it does not have them and cannot pass them on) than it is to acquire them. Yellow legs being recessive have nothing to do with it because the you need the yellow skin along with the dermal melanin to get yellow. So you are not getting rid of yellow you are covering it with sex linked dermal melanin.


Now on another note as a serious breeder ( who would breed to the standard of course when picking a standard color such as BBR) is your rooster based on wild type or wheaten? I only ask because you made a point of saying that you bred him because of his EXCELLANT COLOR AND TYPE. I have to agree on the type. While he is cleanfaced and does not bring tufts to the table he is a beautifully put together rooster. So my question is about his color. What is it based on. I am guessing wild type because of the ofspring that I have seen pictures of. If he was based on wheaten per the Standard of Perfection, then his ofspring would be wheaten looking, because wheaten is dominant visually over wild type. The pullet picture that I have seen shows wild type coloring. The roo chick does also, but as a serious breeder you know that adult roos whether based on wild type, partridge, or wheaten all visually look similar, so we know his color will change as he grows and matures. It is in the hens where we can see the difference in color.


You are absolutely correct about not all breeders breed the same or think the same and that is the way it should be. We all breed to what is beautiful to us. I personally think your rooster is beautiful and if he was mine I might use him also. Since this is an Araucana thread and everyone comes here to learn, I made certain comments that were not meant to be taken as if you were not a great breeder of araucana and I appologize if you thought I was picking on your breeding strategies.


i was merely pointing out that the roo had yellow legs. Now I have laid out how to work around that, and those who didn't know that now do, and the rest of us can say they knew that.

Again, I am sorry you thought I was picking on you in previous posts. Per my paragraph you can now say I was picking on you about color if you would like. LOL!

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

Lanae, What about breeding one that has a tail? I only ended up with two out of my hatch and the male has a beautiful tail. If I hatch eggs from the two, what are my chances of getting rumpless? The breeder I got the eggs from said he has very rarely had birds that developed a tail, so my boy is a little unusual for his line and he has been doing it for quite a while.

Tails pop up in just about everyones lines from time to time. If you breed a rumpless bird to a tailed bird you will get a percentage of rumpless, a percentage of partially tailed and a percentage of tailed. Then just weed out the tailed and partially tailed and breed on from there.

In my blue egger project, I took a completely rumpless roo to tailed polish hens. 75% or the chicks were tailed or partially tailed with 25% being rumpless. Next generation I am only breeding the rumpless birds together. I still expect a partial tail every once in a while.

Lanae

 

[Ksane]

I understand and was not picking on you, please understand that. But also understand that willow legs are sex linked and so females only carry 1 copy, which means that 50% of the roos from from a yellow leg roo to willow leg hen would have willow legs, and none of the pullets would have willow legs. Thats roughly 25% in the first generation.

This part here is confusing to me. Both these 2 pullets are out of the roo in question who has yellow legs. Is this color not willow? What color is it then?
Not arguing just trying to understand

(If you open the picture in a new tab it'll show up full size)

 

[Kassaundra]

Ksane, that is an aweful pink comb one the one on the rt, how old are these two and is the comb really that pink or is it the lighting/camera????

Cashdl, your explanations are very interesting, I try to read all the posts on chicken genetics even though I don't retain a lot and generally the subject tend to make my brain bleed. I want to understand enough to make the best of what I have and make good culling choices as I hatch out chicks.

 

[Ksane]

Ksane, that is an aweful pink comb one the one on the rt, how old are these two and is the comb really that pink or is it the lighting/camera????
Cashdl, your explanations are very interesting, I try to read all the posts on chicken genetics even though I don't retain a lot and generally the subject tend to make my brain bleed. I want to understand enough to make the best of what I have and make good culling choices as I hatch out chicks.

She's about 3 wks older than the other 2 (and yours). But you can tell she's a pullet because of her color pattern (like the nice even lacing) and the salmon/rust color on her breast feathers.
I'm not an expert (which you know lol) but that much I've gathered.

 

[cashdl]

This part here is confusing to me. Both these 2 pullets are out of the roo in question who has yellow legs. Is this color not willow? What color is it then?
Not arguing just trying to understand

(If you open the picture in a new tab it'll show up full size)

These are both pullets correct and those are definately willow legs which is interesting because R. Okimoto stated in a discussion about willow legs that it is sex linked and none willow legged roo would not pass on willow legs to pullets if he didn't have willow to pass on. Thank You for posting this and I don't think you are being argumentative. We are all hear to learn and I will dive into it further.

I went a looked at a few other articles and it seems that the roo must be a carrier of willow, but with yellow legs, which would give 50% of his ofspring willow legs when bred to a willow leg hen. So you can safely consider your chicks test birds, that show that the yellow leg roo is a carrier for willow but does not express it.

Lanae

 

[Ksane]

Quote: I don't know who R Okimoto is but I have figured out that far too many people in life deal with absolutes and it's never that easy

Actually I wasn't sure if this is what everyone called "willow" or not. It looks grayish-green to me.