Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[featherhead007]

Slippin in a pic:

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

totally due to the poor wording on my post! But I think it’s too late to edit... nope! Added one word in and that should clear up the confusion for any future readers. Sorry for wording things so weirdly there! My key point was meant to be that from what I’ve seen personally, and read, Easter Eggers can be a very pushy, domineering breed. Hawk is downright aggressive to other Roosters, a jerk to people, and I dare not free range him. Some of his girls are pretty “assertive/mean” as well, but they are mostly in a flock together so it’s not too bad.

I never knew that about EEs. Lol

 

[RoyalChick]

Slippin in a pic:
View attachment 2394216

Looking good! Names please.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

my phone died mid post... but basically
Ameraucanas were extensively bred from Auraucanas to eliminate the genetic defect while still laying exclusively blue eggs. Easter eggers are a first generation cross breed with one Ameraucana parent. This is an unstable cross, so if you breed two Easter eggers together your chicks could range anywhere on the spectrum going back several generations in traits to their great grandparents.

for instance with dogs:
Labrador+ Poodle=Labradoodle (a fairly uniform cross breed)
Labradoodle+labradoodle= genetic chaos; with offspring anywhere from seemingly pure Lab through looks like almost pure poodle.
If you pulled the most “labradoodle“ like pups and bred them to to each other and their parents (Backcrossing), after enough generations you could establish the labradoodle as it’s own breed to where Labradoodle +labradoodle= labradoodle

This is what happened in the case of the Ameraucana. The blue egg gene in the Ameraucana is not dominant. Easter eggers can produce a high range of egg colors as they are F1 Ameraucana cross hybrids. There are other things that go into eggcolour with only two true shell colors, white and blue. Brown is a coating with many different genes affecting it, and when you cross a blue and a brown layer you often get green, a chicken that carries the blue shell and a variety of brown coating genes.

Crested Cream Legbars, however, have two Dominant Blue genes so they will only ever produce Blue or green laying offspring in a first generation cross.

it’s a confusing topic to start with. I’m focusing on a niche multicolored egg market which is why I’ve spent so long looking into it and trying to wrap my head around what would be best to add into my flock. The CCL has strong blue genetics, but is a smaller and far less frequent layer. I have been breeding their F1 Offspring into my flock but don’t have any pure CCL or Ameraucanas, as of yet

It is very complicated, genetics always is! And I never realized until recently that there are chickens out there laying blue and green eggs. I think that is really awesome.

 

[featherhead007]

Looking good! Names please.

BeeBees, Sunshine, Hen-Rietta

 

[Shadrach]

Calling Phyllis

All this roosting talk has derailed the best thing from today so I am posting it again! How about Phyllis coming when called!?

She's very bright.

 

[Shadrach]

I just want to say that this is a PHD level chicken breed conversation and I am still not at the level of reliably spotting a Wyandotte (though remember my Barnevelder triumph!!). So pardon me for not joining in, I am simply going to wait for the ‘For Dummies’ version.

You and me both. I know jack about most of these breeds.

 

[Ribh]

@micstrachan
I know @BY Bob & lots of others have seen these but these are my Splash Aracaunas. There's quite a bit of diversity shows up in the breed here.
This is Mhari: no beard, no muffs, & her crest isn't very discernible in this pic. She isn't rumpless & has a fine upright tail.
She doesn't look much like ACMs Alice either.

Her sister, Beatha, has both beard & muffs [albeit small ones] as well as a crest & tail.
From my reading I believe they are quite hard to breed as the genetic fault that kills of chicks hasn't been bred out.
They have very docile temperaments, which is why @Kris5902 's comments about EEs surprised me so much.

 

[Ribh]

You and me both. I know jack about most of these breeds.

I don't know anything about EEs, nothing @ all about genetics but I do have Aracaunas.

 

[Kris5902]

I don't know anything about EEs, nothing @ all about genetics but I do have Aracaunas.

Well, if they also share those fatal genes, then they are probably still very closely related to the Chilean araucana, but the crests are definitely different from what is considered standard for the breed in the Americas... I think this speaks quite a lot towards some of the things @Shadrach has said about local breeds. And it does fit in well with evolutionary theory. That two identical breeds separated by significant distance and probably different crossings into the lines, (because you can only straight line breed for so long before things start to go horribly wrong... as previously demonstrated by some royal houses ) will start to develop differently. I’m sure the Marans lines here bear very little resemblance to those where they began as a breed.

I think that the intensive breeding to weed out that genetic fault in the Ameraucana, may be a part of it. Like the overselective breeding in pugs and bulldogs resulting in breathing issues, and afghan hounds and standard collies with their super narrow skulls not being the brightest of breeds (Sorry Lassie!). I do forget if the Araucana Blue gene is a dominant one... but because of the Rumplessness, difficulties breeding them because of it, the fatal gene, and the general rareness of the breed in my area I didn’t really consider them for my flock.