Easter Eggers or Ameraucanas?

[Ol Grey Mare]

Ol Grey Mare I am a newbie and this is my first flock so I am trying to stay as educated as I can

Anything in particular I should know about Easter Eggers? What are the main differences between them and Ameraucanas?
Here are a couple more pics of our sweet Elsa to help confirm you think she is an EEer.

What a cutie!
The main clues are that she came from a farm store and, I would suspect, you likely paid farm store prices for her. True Ameraucanas are fairly rare - they are a purebred bird, lay blue eggs, come in a limited number of recognized colors and one generally pays for that fact. Many farm stores, hatcheries, etc offer "Ameraucanas" (often with a misspelling such as Americana or as "Ameraucana - the Easter Egg chicken" etc) that are actually Easter Eggers. Easter Eggers are mixed breed birds created using *some* blue egg laying parentage (Ameraucana, Araucana, Legbar, etc) and more common production breeds - this results in chicks that can lay eggs in the blue/green family but may also produce eggs of brown, cream, etc depending on whether they inherit the appropriate genetics to produce blue. It's a bit of dirty advertising, imo, as most hatcheries even acknowledge that they aren't selling what they say they are if you read the actual description and see that they allude to them being "some Ameraucana blood, may lay blue or green eggs, etc"
There is NOTHING wrong with EE at all - I actually have two in my coop as I type (also sold by a farm store as Ameraucana - but I knew what I was getting). In fact, some advantages can be that they tend to produce better than the purebred Ameraucana (likely due to the mixed breeding using high production breeds for increased lay rate) and they come in a wider variety of color/pattern (also due to being mixed breed). The variety is one of the things I enjoy most about them - you can buy several chicks that all look relatively similar in the fuzz-butt stage and end up with a flock in which no two look the same.

 

[pennypenny]

What a cutie!
The main clues are that she came from a farm store and, I would suspect, you likely paid farm store prices for her.  True Ameraucanas are fairly rare - they are a purebred bird, lay blue eggs, come in a limited number of recognized colors and one generally pays for that fact.  Many farm stores, hatcheries, etc offer "Ameraucanas" (often with a misspelling such as Americana or as "Ameraucana - the Easter Egg chicken" etc) that are actually Easter Eggers.  Easter Eggers are mixed breed birds created using *some* blue egg laying parentage (Ameraucana, Araucana, Legbar, etc) and more common production breeds - this results in chicks that can lay eggs in the blue/green family but may also produce eggs of brown, cream, etc depending on whether they inherit the appropriate genetics to produce blue.    It's a bit of dirty advertising, imo, as most hatcheries even acknowledge that they aren't selling what they say they are if you read the actual description and see that they allude to them being "some Ameraucana blood, may lay blue or green eggs, etc"
There is NOTHING wrong with EE at all - I actually have two in my coop as I type (also sold by a farm store as Ameraucana - but I knew what I was getting).  In fact, some advantages can be that they tend to produce better than the purebred Ameraucana (likely due to the mixed breeding using high production breeds for increased lay rate) and they come in a wider variety of color/pattern (also due to being mixed breed).   The variety is one of the things I enjoy most about them - you can buy several chicks that all look relatively similar in the fuzz-butt stage and end up with a flock in which no two look the same.

Thank you so much for all of that information! Very tricky indeed, I just want a happy healthy girl so I am not really disappointed. We were told her eggs could be blue, green, beige or pinkish so it makes sense she is not purebred. My girls are convinced however that because they named her Elsa her eggs will be blue it will be fun to see what color we get when she starts laying!

 

[BantamLover21]

They look like Easter Eggers to me. At this age, there is no way to sex them besides vent sexing.

 

[wvducklady]

I love chickens, so I am happy with Easter Eggers or Ameraucanas! The sad part is my boyfriend is only letting me keep 3 out of the 6 that I have lol We are giving 3 to our neighbor up the road. My boyfriend is wanting to give my neighbor his 3 this weekend so that is why I wanted to try to sex them to make sure the 3 I picked are hens To be truthful.....I want them all....haha It is just so hard to pick, because they are all so cute and pretty. Here is another question; Before they started to feather I have 2 that had alot of black fuzzy, 1 that had alot of grey, and 3 that had alot of yellow. Is that normal for the easter egger breed to be different colors as baby chicks? Now that they are feathering their patterns are the same, but color of their pattern is different, 3 are the same, 1 is different and 2 are the same.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I love chickens, so I am happy with Easter Eggers or Ameraucanas! The sad part is my boyfriend is only letting me keep 3 out of the 6 that I have

lol We are giving 3 to our neighbor up the road. My boyfriend is wanting to give my neighbor his 3 this weekend so that is why I wanted to try to sex them to make sure the 3 I picked are hens

To be truthful.....I want them all....haha It is just so hard to pick, because they are all so cute and pretty. Here is another question; Before they started to feather I have 2 that had alot of black fuzzy, 1 that had alot of grey, and 3 that had alot of yellow. Is that normal for the easter egger breed to be different colors as baby chicks? Now that they are feathering their patterns are the same, but color of their pattern is different, 3 are the same, 1 is different and 2 are the same.

At this age there is really not much difference between having 3 and having 6 - I would keep them until you are absolutely certain of genders.

 

[enola]

If you can get close up pictures of their combs, I can take a stab at guessing sexes for you. They have to be well lit clear pictures.

 

[wvducklady]

If you can get close up pictures of their combs, I can take a stab at guessing sexes for you. They have to be well lit clear pictures.

thank you! I will post some later today.

 

[wvducklady]

I did not get a chance to take some close up pictures, but I talked my boyfriend into keeping them longer I will get some pictures taken within the next couple days though.

 

[Watermelon123]

Hope you guys don't mind me sharing my story.

I was at TSC yesterday and my mom asked me if their "Ameraucanas" was the breed I wanted. I said "Yes, But thoes are not ameraucanas." she asked me how do I know. I told her they were not the right coulor and don't have the right ameraucana features.
She then looked at me and said "who cares?"
I replied with "I care."
As we went outside to finish the funraiser we were doing she said "No one likes a smart *****."
Then we both laughed so hard we nealy fell to the floor.

 

[wvducklady]

That is funny!