Is This An Araucana?

[Time-Out]

Great post dretd. And lots of interesting information! That thing about the quarter horses was rather interesting too. Do you have a source for that? My mum's into her QHs as she has owned a couple. I'm sure she'd be fascinated.

 

[dretd]

Great post dretd. And lots of interesting information! That thing about the quarter horses was rather interesting too. Do you have a source for that? My mum's into her QHs as she has owned a couple. I'm sure she'd be fascinated.

Hi Time-Out. If your mom is in to QH's then she is probably more up on the exact rules then I am! I just picked up this info along the way and don't currently have any QH's myself (I have a Curly, who's origin is even more interesting, IMHO) so I had to google the info for the exact 411. Turns out the Excessive White rule was not actually modified until 2004, I was remembering the discussions from the 90's. Here is a summary: http://www.discoverhorses.com/all-about-horses/why-do-quarter-horses-get-pinto-markings/

 

[Time-Out]

Thanks. I don't know how much she's know about them actually, only that she likes them, after her first love - Camargues. She keeps them as pets for trail rides. I'll tell her what you said. She's in France, so the rules might differ slightly, but she'll be interested all the same. Cowboys and all that

 

[CibolaChooks]

So basically i have ameraucana then but if my hatchery i got them from doesnt do an amazing job at such a diffucult job (breeding perfect looking animals to standard) then people on here will pick them apart and say there just an EE. I imagine i could buy a hundred Ameraucana from a well respected breeder and still only get 20-30 of them to look just right for people to call them real ameraucana. if a blood line is pure 100% only one variety of chicken, if you get a chic hatched that is an anomaly in color or traits then people want to fight you over the fact that its actually a diffrent bird or a cross. pele sounds like he knows what hes talking about. lol. i will have to send you close ups of mine when they are older so you can pick them apart for me. learning the standards is going to take me some time.

 

[hdowden]

Now to make matters worse, any bird with a hint of green legs or a beard or muffs is called an Easter Egger even if is has no Ameraucana genes in its body

this really depends on the color of the eggs it lays. i don't think they are automatically EE's

 

[Pele]

dretd, that is an amazingly good breakdown of the situation. I agree completely with everything you said.

On one hand, you have a group of people working obscenely hard who are having their breed quality threatened by hatcheries labeling any old bird with their breed name.

On the other hand, you have standards that seem a bit too high to the general population, and leads to confusion, and perhaps a few hurt feelings.

I personally think the dust will eventually settle when the breed gets to be older and more established, and won't have to be so heavily defended from ripoffs, but for now things are a bit of a mess.

Im a bit weird in that I like to see so much discussion and passion about the birds. Chickens are worth it!

 

[dretd]

Now to make matters worse, any bird with a hint of green legs or a beard or muffs is called an Easter Egger even if is has no Ameraucana genes in its body

this really depends on the color of the eggs it lays. i don't think they are automatically EE's

I am just going by the advice folks give here when identifying bird for folks. Someone will post a pic of a chick with chipmunk stripes and it seems so many times EE comes up as the knee-jerk response even if there are no muffs, beards or eggs for that matter. It seems that for some folks, EE has become a catch-all for mutt, which it is not (at least not in my mind). I have a hatchery EE that lays tinted eggs and I have no doubt she has a blue egg layer in her ancestry somewhere.

 

[dretd]

dretd, that is an amazingly good breakdown of the situation. I agree completely with everything you said.

On one hand, you have a group of people working obscenely hard who are having their breed quality threatened by hatcheries labeling any old bird with their breed name.

On the other hand, you have standards that seem a bit too high to the general population, and leads to confusion, and perhaps a few hurt feelings.

I personally think the dust will eventually settle when the breed gets to be older and more established, and won't have to be so heavily defended from ripoffs, but for now things are a bit of a mess.

Im a bit weird in that I like to see so much discussion and passion about the birds. Chickens are worth it!

Thanks Pele, its sad really in so many ways. I think there is a common ground there somewhere. You'd think the dust would be settling considering its been maybe 30 years?! I think the real problem is that we are assigning a breed (or not) based solely on phenotypes. It would be easier if each individual bird was registered in that breed like horses, dogs, cats etc so you know the exact parentage. It would be impossible with chickens, but would keep things straight anyway.

I think another wrench in the mix is when very good, dedicated breeders start breeding for colors not in the breed standard such as lavender anything. Eventually that may become accepted when enough folks get on board and they reliably breed true. But it confuses most casual chicken folks when they see a legit breeder offering Lavender Ameraucanas and that's ok, only to have someone else dismissively call their chicken an Easter Egger 'mutt' when they thought they had a purebred because it doesn't meet standard.

I've actually wondered why the Ameraucana Breeders Club didn't trademark the name and only allow authorized breeders to use it. Not sure if that can be done at this late date or not. It could give them recourse to get the hatcheries to change their stock to EE or even I would be ok with Amer'i'cana because its spelled differently.

 

[dretd]

So basically i have ameraucana then but if my hatchery i got them from doesnt do an amazing job at such a diffucult job (breeding perfect looking animals to standard) then people on here will pick them apart and say there just an EE. I imagine i could buy a hundred Ameraucana from a well respected breeder and still only get 20-30 of them to look just right for people to call them real ameraucana. if a blood line is pure 100% only one variety of chicken, if you get a chic hatched that is an anomaly in color or traits then people want to fight you over the fact that its actually a diffrent bird or a cross. pele sounds like he knows what hes talking about. lol. i will have to send you close ups of mine when they are older so you can pick them apart for me. learning the standards is going to take me some time.

I would say that no volume commercial hatchery sells true Ameraucanas and that it would be a fluke if one met breed standards. They had their stock years before the breed was standardized and so I doubt started with any 'purebreds'.

Your clue on purebred or not would be if they label the chicks by color. If you see White (or Silver or Wheaten etc) Americana then they are advertising a standard color and have separated them out. If no, it would be like you ordering a Wyandotte from a hatchery. Which one you ask--black, white, silver penciled, BLR, Partridge etc--and them saying 'oh, we just run them all together and the colors are mixed'. Those chicks may be genetically Wyandottes but they do not meet breed standards so you would have to call them Wyandotte mixes.

It will be very rare that you get a breeder that cares about their lines and hatches chicks that don't meet breed standard. It may happen if a roo jumped the fence or if they don't cull the imperfect ones or they get stock from another breeder and hidden genes pop up unexpectedly. But for the most part you will get what you buy.

I guess my advice for you if you want a pure Ameraucana ( I love my EE so I really don't care personally), then you need to decide what color you like then buy that advertised color. If the breeder (or 'breeder') you get them from cannot tell you what color they are, then they are likely from hatchery stock and are not true Ameraucanas and you should look elsewhere.

 

[dretd]

Okay...So, if I asked you what breed she was, what would you call her?...

Sorry I kinda hijacked your thread with all sorts philosophizing! Personally I would be inclined to call her an Easter Egger (and a mighty pretty one at that) since you don't know for sure she came originally from a breeder of purebreds and not one that was breeding the Araucanas they got from a Commercial Hatchery. But that's just me. If you wanted to call her a non-standard Araucana I would be fine with that, too unless you were breeding her and selling the chicks as Araucanas in which case you would have to call them mixes or EEs.