She is a very cute Easter Egger. Most of the hatcheries call their EE's Ameraucanas, which is not correct, but I have seen it posted in feed stores, many times. It just makes for a lot of confusion.
boykin2010,
Don't despair most people start with EE(that is what they are called now-a-days). At one time there were no Ameraucanas and Araucanas were very rare. You should consider visiting both club sites and they have a lot of information. They were always a novelty because they layed various colored eggs in many different shades. They are the best sellers for the hatcheries but it is the hatcheries that have exploited them and put no effort in improving them. There is a thread on here also for just Easter Eggers and you may want to consider also visiting that thread. Good luck she is pretty and you will enjoy the eggs.
I must say, that I have both EE's and Araucanas and have seen true ameraucana's but My EE's are so far the most calm and friendliest out of all 3. But yes Araucanas can be clean-faced and tailed because of the genetics the breed derived from a rumpless clean faced bird and a tufted tailed bird.
Wow, not many "expert" responses here, I'll honestly say.
She's what we call an "Easter Egger," which is basically a mutt breed that lays a colored egg but does not qualify to be either of the two breeds you listed. Since she lays blue eggs, she's likely got quite a bit of Ameraucana behind her, but her color is unrecognized to the breed standard, so you can't do anything with her except have her as a normal laying hen.
If you're really looking for REAL Ameraucanas or even Araucanas, you'd need to go to a breeder. I breed both Ameraucanas and Araucanas.
Also just a quick identifying note for the future - Ameraucanas will usually look like her, they have a tail and a pair of "muffs" with a beard. But they are NOT sold at hatcheries, feedstores, or by average backyard breeders.
This is an Ameraucana
Araucanas are a small sized, quite rare breed that has no tail and "tufts" - These are different, as the bird has no beard, and instead a pair of frilly feathers sticking out each side of its face.
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You can totally do that, most of the time you will end up with blue or green laying hens.
A lot of people as far as I've seen here look down on EE's because they are not a pure recognized breed, I understand that a lot of people care about keeping a breed of chicken pure and want to improve it, but that in no way means that EE's are less than ameraucanas or araucanas.
Many of the benefits to having EE's is that, they come in a bunch of different colors, they are usually better layers than the Ameraucanas and Araucanas, and its just fun to see them develop as they always have you guessing what color they'll feather out or what color egg they'll lay.
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She is neither. She is an Easter Egger. Araucana and Ameraucana are totally different things. She may look like an Ameraucana, but she is not a recognized color, therefore she is an EE.
She does not look like an ameraucana. She has some of the traits, but type is way off.