Ear Muffs, Tufts, & Beards

[ClareScifi]

Which breeds/types of chickens have ear muffs?

Which breeds/types of chickens have tufts?

Can you post some photos of "beards" for me?

Thank you. I am confused.

 

[Illia]

Only Araucanas have tufts.


Ameraucanas, d'Uccles, d'Anvers, Polish, Sultans, Crevecouers, Houdans, Spitzhaubens, and Brabanters are just a sample of bearded breeds to name.

Look at any Ameraucana's face or most Easter Egger's faces and that's a beard. Fluffy mass of downy feathers under the beak and eyes.


Tufts are very different, being actual feathers coming from just near the earlobes of a chicken's face, framing only the sides and often either curling upward or hanging down. They really do vary though, and some birds can have just one tuft.

 

[ClareScifi]

Interesting! Thank you!

Do most chickens have a smooth soft thing that is like a muff, but not a truly pronounced muff? I'm wondering if what I think are muffs on my chickens are common to all chickens, but I don't see anything like that on my Barred Rocks?

 

[ClareScifi]

For example, someone told me this guy has white earlobes. I thought they were white ear muffs, and that the lobes are below the ear muffs and red in color?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/84553_dscf7067cr_1.jpg

 

[Illia]

The white there is just an ear tuft, different from actual tufts like on Araucanas. ALL chickens have what that rooster has there. His actual earlobes though are red, and just below that white tuft-thingy.

The fluffy down between a hen's small wattles or at her throat is not her muffs/beard, no. Barred Rocks don't have such trait.

This is muffs/beard. Nice, full, showy.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
The white feathers around his ears are neither tufts nor muffs. And yes, he does have red earlobes.

 

[ClareScifi]

So are those velvety cream-colored patches above his earlobes called something? Someone referred to them as "ear fuzz." Is that their technical term?

 

[MorganC]

Not that I am aware of....
What does anyone else think?

 

[johnnyreb]

This is my mother hen here at my stead, Henreyetta, i know that i call them muffs just because thays what they resemble haha. But i love this girl.
How we got her name was when she was just a day or to old i thought it was going to be a roo, so i named him Henry.
Then i decided i wasnt sure and named her henryetta. So the name stuck

 

[dianahuffman]

Which breeds/types of chickens have ear muffs?

Which breeds/types of chickens have tufts?

Can you post some photos of "beards" for me?

Thank you. I am confused.