Araucana thread anyone?

[Kassaundra]

I have a tufts question. I know they have to have tufts to pass tufts, but my question is if a boy has tiny, really tiny tufts, but still has them can he pass good tufts to his offspring? Especially w/o any other tuft genetics in the mix?

 

[smoothmule]

I have a tufts question. I know they have to have tufts to pass tufts, but my question is if a boy has tiny, really tiny tufts, but still has them can he pass good tufts to his offspring? Especially w/o any other tuft genetics in the mix?

Kassaundra,
There are a lot of things involved in making good tufts. There is supposedly even genes that can suppress tufts so it's hard to say if the size of tufts is totally in charge. Size, placement, balanced tufts etc are all genetic but if you bred a small tufted rooster to a hen with genes to suppress tufts, you may not get many at all and another hen that is clean faced as well, may have genes that help it along.

I've had some of the largest, best tufts from crosses to non-Araucana's and from not so large tufts on the Araucana parent. I guess the easy answer is to simply say there is a lot more to it than just whether or not the tufts are there. I do find that single tufts seem to produce single tufts too.

 

[Kassaundra]

Thanks smoothmule. My little less colorful araucana boy (little man) has two even tufts but extremely tiny, barely noticeable, I didn't even see them until I picked him up and had his head still. Ari is brightly colored and has big tufts, but is pretty small. If I breed either one of them it will be to either a NN or NN/houdan or EE as those are my only females. I really like the rumpless and tufted look and want to introduce that to my flock genetics, but don't want to sacrifice size as much as Ari would. I live in town so am limited to how many chickens and especially roos I can have, I don't show, my goals in hatching my own chickens is for healthy, hardy, productive, individual looking chickens. So really just trying to figure out what options I do have and if little man is even an option to add tufts to my flock.

 

[smoothmule]

I think you should try them both

The more genetic diversity the better and you won't know until you give them a try.

 

[Rumbull]

My blue araucana roo is tufted although they are too small to see. I have no idea if he is single or double tufted. This is a picture of one of his daughters. Her mother is verifiable non tufted. You can see he can produce nice large double tufts.

 

[smoothmule]

My blue araucana roo is tufted although they are too small to see. I have no idea if he is single or double tufted. This is a picture of one of his daughters. Her mother is verifiable non tufted. You can see he can produce nice large double tufts.

Very nice

 

[Kassaundra]

My blue araucana roo is tufted although they are too small to see. I have no idea if he is single or double tufted. This is a picture of one of his daughters. Her mother is verifiable non tufted. You can see he can produce nice large double tufts.

Awesome, so there is hope.

 

[syble]

what a gorgeous girl!!! one day i hope to have some that nice!

 

[cashdl]

There are a few nice auctions on showbird auctions right now. The whites would be a great start toward breeding your own show birds. It is really hard to get good clean whites and these would give you a great start.


Here is the home page.

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

None of the auctions are mine, I didn't want anyone to miss out.

Lanae

 

[Kassaundra]

I tried to get pics of Little man's tiny tufts, but didn't get any really good shots


This was as close as I got to seeing them




And Ari