British Tailed Araucana are the only Araucana available in New Zealand. The Lavender are the most common but some people are starting to develop them in other colours. We purchased some hatching eggs with a project of our own in mind. We hatched 9 out of 10 eggs we picked up a 3 hours drive away (unfortunately the last chick was malpositioned, most likely due to the humidity taking a dive right before lockdown). They were from Partridge parents. We also got some shipped eggs and managed to hatch 3 out of 8. They are from someone's Birchen project. It was quite amazing the difference between eggs we picked up and ones that had quite a journey to us. They hatched between the 27th and 29th of August.
We ordered 12 more Birchen eggs and they are on day 3 in the incubator.
After lots of research I have figured out how to use those 2 colours to make Silver Blues and Lemon Blues. So that's our project. We will need to use a Partridge rooster over Birchen hens then cross the offspring to produce Brown Reds before we can make the Lemon Blues, so it's more of a long-term goal at this stage.
We ended up with 6 gorgeous Partridge chicks then there are 3 that are much lighter so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. From the Birchen eggs we ended up with 1 Splash (very important for our project), 1 very black baby with the white dot under its chin which will be Birchen, and 1 that's dark but has more of a reddish tint to its down so we'll see how that one turns out too.
We attempted to put a bit of food colouring on the ones that came from the bluest eggs but I think we got more colour on us than on the chicks.
They are very gorgeous and mob our hands every time we put them in the brooder. Our daughter thinks it's hilarious to make them twirl - they will stand up tall to follow her finger and she'll lead them round in a little pirouette. It looks adorable.
They do look like little ballerinas. They also like to be handfed. I am fermenting their chick starter and they much prefer to eat it off my fingers than out of the bowl! It makes their poop much firmer and easier to clean up when we have them out of the brooder for a little play on the floor.
These pale ones are very pretty so I can't wait to see how they feather in.
I'll do my best to be good and update this as we make progress with our project.
We ordered 12 more Birchen eggs and they are on day 3 in the incubator.
After lots of research I have figured out how to use those 2 colours to make Silver Blues and Lemon Blues. So that's our project. We will need to use a Partridge rooster over Birchen hens then cross the offspring to produce Brown Reds before we can make the Lemon Blues, so it's more of a long-term goal at this stage.
We ended up with 6 gorgeous Partridge chicks then there are 3 that are much lighter so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. From the Birchen eggs we ended up with 1 Splash (very important for our project), 1 very black baby with the white dot under its chin which will be Birchen, and 1 that's dark but has more of a reddish tint to its down so we'll see how that one turns out too.
We attempted to put a bit of food colouring on the ones that came from the bluest eggs but I think we got more colour on us than on the chicks.
They are very gorgeous and mob our hands every time we put them in the brooder. Our daughter thinks it's hilarious to make them twirl - they will stand up tall to follow her finger and she'll lead them round in a little pirouette. It looks adorable.
They do look like little ballerinas. They also like to be handfed. I am fermenting their chick starter and they much prefer to eat it off my fingers than out of the bowl! It makes their poop much firmer and easier to clean up when we have them out of the brooder for a little play on the floor.These pale ones are very pretty so I can't wait to see how they feather in.
I'll do my best to be good and update this as we make progress with our project.
