Breeding Araucanas tufted/rumpless to SOP

[enola]

Nice looking birds! But, I see the breeder is not separating the colors that are accepted by the SOP.

 

[Sassyhens1]

I know. No tufts either

 

[enola]

If your hatching eggs came from this flock, you are not going to get SOP chickens. You are going to get a pretty variety of colors, but not SOP color varieties.

 

[Sassyhens1]

I know my thought was I would have a little more breeding stock to work with and deal with coloring later. Because finding a perfect Araucana is nearly impossible. There is blue egg gene, tufts, rumpless, etc etc. I searched this site for chicks/eggs and came up empty handed?

 

[Sassyhens1]

I almost feel lucky just to get my hands on something to work with and not break the bank. The gal I bought the chicks from paid $150 for her hen. To me that is insane!! I will breed five generations to achieve SOP befit spending that kind of cash. Lol

 

[enola]

Breeding SOP quality chickens from non SOP quality chickens will take many more than 5 generations. Feed costs alone will cost you way more than $150, not to mention all of your time and effort.

Starting with a good quality rooster will get you to your goal without multiple generations and breaking the bank in the meantime.

 

[Sassyhens1]

I know. My hubby said the same thing. I was too anxious and bought these chicks and bid on the eggs. Big learning curve in the beginning. So would you say I find this SOP rooster and breed to the best of my hatched eggs or current chicks ? I'll post pictures of them now.

 

[enola]

I think you need to do more research. Breeding SOP quality chickens means much more than throwing a bunch of different color varieties in a pen and hoping for SOP quality chicks.

Each color variety of the breed will have to be kept in separate groups. For instance, if you want to breed SOP Araucanas, the white variety will have to be kept separate from the black variety. The same goes for all of the accepted variety colors of the breed.

If you put all of your colors in the same breeding pen, you will hatch chicks that will not grow up any where near the SOP quality you are hoping to breed. You will get lots of varieties in color, the hens will still lay blue eggs, they just will not be SOP.

 

[Sassyhens1]

Lol. I understand that part of the breeding. A the SOP is black, white (yellow leg) golden duckwing etc. The birds in the picture above are from another flock who I am buying eggs from. I have white. But I have to start somewhere. Finding a SOP cockerel white is like finding a needle in a haystack. So when I say 'deal with color later' I am referring to dealing with simple dominate colors not a hodgepodge. I just do not see it being as simple as buying SOP birds. With this breed you have to work toward creating SOP araucanas. I do not think a perfect one exists and if they do breeders keep them.

 

[Sassyhens1]

You are 100% right I do need to find a cockerel of SOP standard this will jumpstart the project. Hopefully I will get a few posts/links to possible sellers.