Bay Area BYCers!

[ChickasaurusRex]

Thanks!
Thanks for the offer but I was just asking for future reference. My little ones aren't out yet so I won't be needing it now.
Thanks again

 

[roni0907]

Any looking for a FREE Ameraucana (is that how you spell it??) rooster? One of my 10 week old chickens turned out to be male, and it is only a matter of time before the neighbors start complaining to the municipality. I am in Oakley - if you want him, you are welcome to take him home with you!!! I just cannot make soup out of something I named, and I thought I would try here first. He needs to be re-homed asap! Please let me know - thanks!

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
He's a lovely Easter Egger cockerel, not an Ameraucana.

Ameraucanas are a standardized breed accepted by the American Poultry Association with 8 distinct color varieties.

Hopefully you find a good home for him.

 

[roni0907]

Quote:
He's a lovely Easter Egger cockerel, not an Ameraucana.

Ameraucanas are a standardized breed accepted by the American Poultry Association with 8 distinct color varieties.

Hopefully you find a good home for him.

Thank you very much for the clarification - Brentwood Feed told us he was an Ameraucana, and since we are novices, we took their word for it!! Guess I have some breed identification homework to do, haha!

 

[sewandgrow]

Quote:
He's a lovely Easter Egger cockerel, not an Ameraucana.

Ameraucanas are a standardized breed accepted by the American Poultry Association with 8 distinct color varieties.

Hopefully you find a good home for him.

Thank you very much for the clarification - Brentwood Feed told us he was an Ameraucana, and since we are novices, we took their word for it!! Guess I have some breed identification homework to do, haha!

It is quite common to come across Easter Eggers that are being referred to as Ameraucana (yes you spelled it right), Americanas, & even sometimes Araucanas...........all wrong. I think I see them advertised more wrong than right. Even the hatcheries themselves do it. It adds to the confusion over breed ID. I have clung to one EE rooster & 1 hen because I hatched him out of such a big beautiful blue egg. I haven't seem an Ameraucana yet that beats it. Although I don't use him to breed any of my hatching eggs.

 

[ChickasaurusRex]

I'm going to sell my Coronation sussex cockerel and I was wondering how much I should sell him for???? I MIGHT have 2...

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
I was wondering the same thing...

I have a Blue Coronation Sussex (genetically Andalusian Blue not Lavender) cockerel that I would rather send to a new home than eat. He is b-e-a-utiful, even as a young guy. He's already quite a chunker so I'm guessing he'll mature into a large bird.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

Jeremy, what does it mean when you say Andalusian Blue, not Lavender? I have an Easter Egger roo who looks to be a Blue Wheaten. But, I was told he is actually Lavender. Weirdly, when he was a chick, he looked Andalusian to me. The lady where I got the hatching eggs had Ameraucanas and Andalusians, among others. I'm wondering if that's his mixed heritage. So, back to the Andalusian Blue, not Lavender question. Do you have any pics of these colors?

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Andalusian Blue is regular blue. Blue with lacing. It does not breed true, meaning if you cross two Blue birds the result will be 50% Blue offspring, 25% Black offspring and 25% Splash offspring.

It looks like this, one of my Blue English Orp hens, Alice.

Lavender, or Self Blue is a recessive gene that requires two copies of the gene to be expressed, one from each parent. If two Lavender birds are mated they will breed true, producing only Lavender chicks.

Lavender looks like these, this picture of a Lavender Orp via chirpychicks.com.

So Coronation with the Blue gene looks like this,

Pictures of the adult birds can be seen here, https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=519249
I have a picture of a mature Blue roo, but it's not mine. I can ask the owner who I hatched these chicks from if I can post it here.

With Lavender, Coronation looks like this. (These pictures were taken from a Google search...)

One of the major advantages the Blue Coros have over the Lavender birds is that they do not have the genetic feather issues that the Lavender birds do. If you look at the Lav Orp pictured and the second Lav Coro hen pictured you'll see that some of the Lavender colored feathers look frayed, sorta like they have split ends. This is called "fretting" and is common in birds that express the Lavender gene. For what ever reason Lav birds tend to have a poor feather quality that causes the fretting and damaged feather look, breeders combat this issue by crossing their birds back to Black birds and then breed the Splits together or back to Lavender birds to improve feather quality. It's not an issue you have to deal with in Blue birds though.

Personally, I think the Blue birds are much prettier and don't have that faded, "washed out" look that many Lavender birds have. Lavender doesn't look like Lavender to me, it looks like dish water gray.

Did I answer your question?

 

[jeremy]

Steff, if you post some pictures of your BW EE boy I could try and help you whether or not he is actually Blue or Lavender. The easiest way to tell if he is Blue is to look for lacing, if his feathers are edged in darker Blue/Black then he is Blue. Lavender does not ever have lacing.