I will be submitting a proposal to revise the Standard Description for the Blue Wheaten Male Ameraucana. This proposal will have two aspects to it. The first deals with the dark blue “lacing” on the breast. The definition of “lacing” calls for a distinct border of contrasting color around the entire web, uniform in width, and usually moderately narrow. It has been taught to me by several breeders and APA judges that the edging in the Blue Wheaten male breast is not distinct lacing, but edging at best. It is also known among genetics experts that there are three genes necessary for the true lacing; Co, Pg, and Ml. The consensus seems to be that the Blue Wheaten is lacking one of these three genes, which explains the lack of true, distinct lacing. Mike Gilbert, who developed the first Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas in Bantam, also acknowledges that the variety has never had the distinct lacing, and the wording calling it such was an error. Seeing how the Wheaten pattern is much more complicated than the Black/Blue/Splash, it is not as simple to bring in true lacing as it was for the Blue Ameraucana, as some breeders have done utilizing the Blue Andalusian. It is believed that doing so would alter the female phenotype adversely. I, and many other breeders of this variety, believe that the RIGHT thing to do would be to correct the error in the Standard rather than attempt to change the genetics on an entire variety. Therefore, the first aspect of this proposed revision will be to change the wording “laced with dark blue” to “edged with dark blue”.
The second aspect deals with the ever-present shafting when there is edging and lacing. It is believed among many experts that the shafting is a natural phenotype that accompanies any edging or lacing. In fact, the shafting is actually required in Blue Andalusian in the Australian Standard. Since this is a natural occurrence, and since shafting is considered a fault unless it is specifically called for in the Standard, the second aspect of this proposal includes “with some dark blue shafting”, but PLEASE NOTE, the shafting is only added to the clause that states “Preferably edged with dark blue”, which specifically only connects the shafting to the edging. Since the BW male allows no lacing/edging, and only lists the darker blue edging as “Preferable”, the shafting should remain with the edging only, and not on BW males that lack the dark blue edging.
