EE, Ameraucanas, Araucana, mutts--my rant.

[sugarbush]

I read an artical in national geographic yesterday that has inspired the solution to this name mess.....
It is from april 1927 and is called domestic chickens....it is actually an interesting artical, but I really liked what it said about araucana. It said that these birds are from South America and is the only domestic chicken in the world that lays a blue egg. So if that was true in 1927 that would indicate that if you own a bird laying a blue egg it is an Araucana mix......

 

[key west chick]

I swore I was gonna stay away from this but, well, I couldn't. An Araucana CAN have a tail, even if it is 100% Araucana, it is just not the standard. That does NOT make it an EE. It is just a non standard, not show quality Araucana. Same with Ameraucanas. A non standard Ameraucana isn't an EE.

 

[roosty]

Quote:

Right on brother/sister!!

 

[sugarbush]

Thats the whole problem with this debate....Ameraucana and Aruacana should never have been seperated into two seperate standards to begin with.... the tailed bearded and the rumpless, tufted birds where submitted to the apa to be recognized as araucana, but the apa rejected the standard that was submitted and went with standard that we know today....all the birds that were shown at the time as samples ended up not meeting the standards so that is when the breeders went back and started calling their birds American Araucana which where later recognized and the name shortend to ameraucana. Originally they where both known as araucan and that is why the hatcheries still call them that today.

That does NOT make it an EE. It is just a non standard, not show quality Araucana. Same with Ameraucanas. A non standard Ameraucana isn't an EE

By that definition EEs do not exist...​

 

[ILOVEFRIZZLES]

Can anyone post the eggs for both Ameraucana and Aruacana. I have EE that were sold to me as Ameraucana and I think the eggs are little blue but I have never seen real Ameraucana eggs.

 

[sugarbush]

Just crack it open and pull the membrane off of the inside.....then do the same with a white egg and compare side, by side. A blue egg is blue on the inside. The blue can range from light to medium blue... If the egg is white on the inside than it is not blue... That does not mean your bird is not decendant of araucan/ameraucana.....the birds that originally came here from south american and where being called araucan laid more than just blue eggs.....they were mixed breed flocks to begin with.... even the rumplessness was bred in using rumpless birds the dutch introduced to South America.

 

[Chickndaddy]

I too try to stay out of these debates, but I just couldn't resist.

Araucanas and Ameraucanas are two breeds that should conform to a Standard. Easter Eggers are birds of a mixed heritage that inherited some of the traits of either of those breeds, but more importantly the blue egg gene.

All of them are beautiful birds in their own way. Each of them have their differences and similarities.

What hatcheries sell though are not Ameraucanas, and definitely not Araucanas. They are Easter Eggers, for lack of a better term, basically beautiful mutts that might lay a blue or green egg.

Not only do hatcheries intentionally mislabel their breeds, they all use the same painted portrait of a pair of Ameraucanas, to misrepresent and sell their birds. I have never seen an EE from a hatchery look anything like that picture. They could at least make a collage of possible plumage outcomes to show people what they would get instead of using a picture of a purebred Ameraucana to sell them. People would probably be more likely to buy them with a "real" picture because of all the fantastic outcomes you might end up with.

But to call them something their obviously not, just to market and sell them in my opinion is wrong.

You can check out a thread I posted months ago on the same matter here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=63160

 

[sugarbush]

Quote:
So what color is this "Pure bred" a picture of? http://www.meyerhatchery.com/get_item_doamp_ameraucana-pullets.htm

I will even make it easy for you and throw in all the pictures of standard colors so you can point out which one meyer's purbred picture is of.... http://www.ameraucana.org/scrapbook.html

I have a "Silver Ameraucana" that is hatchery stock and nobody would know she was if I didn't openly say that she was...There is nothing about her that does not meet the breed standard.

 

[roosty]

Exactly what I was gonna say...here is a link http://www.meyerhatchery.com/item.a...FFF&t=Ameraucana+Standard+(Females)&showbig=2 What pure bred color is this?
A friend of mine has a white "EE" and meets the "standard"...nobody would know any difference if she didnt tell them!...

 

[Chicken Fruit]

The same thing with mille fleurs. Its not a breed, its a color. I asked a woman about the roos she had on craigslist what breed they were and she had no clue what i was talking about. Mille fleur IS the breed she said. no no, mille fleur is a color pattern- you have to attach it to a breed.. probably dUccels.

I had no idea my ameruacana's werent ameruacanas until i got on this forum. Doesnt matter to me, i just wanted color eggs. But in my hatchery's defense they were listed as ameraucana (easter egg layers). Not that I knew what that meant at the time.