Mixed genetics and their (dis)advantages

[NorthTexasWink]

I actually read through the over 300 pages of this thread recently, as I've become interested in the Cream Legbars. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/cream-legbar-hybrid-thread.825092/page-310

Good info and the birds are deluxe eye candy.

ETA: I recently purchased 8 EE pullet chicks from Ideal, knowing full well they were not "Ameraucana", whatever the heck than name means anyway. Ideal is close, my chicks are a week old today-healthy vibrant lovelies, as are the rest of the 25 I ordered from them (5 other breeds). I got them within 12 hours if their shipping from the hatchery. I'm not sorry I ordered from Ideal, as they do note in the description that they aren't a pure breed. I got exactly what I wanted, call them whatever you will.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

And it's unfortunate. I understand why breeders of purebred would be upset. I'm not certain why EE carries such a derogatory connotation and why people feel the need to try to pass them off as purebreds and not EE. Many people do not care...if all they are looking for is a colorful egg basket and egg laying hens. Most just want eggs.

I think I can see both sides of the picture.

Most backyard owners simply want pretty eggs and healthy birds. Providing EEs for them by the hatcheries is profitable for the hatchery and fun for the owner.

Usually the EE was bred from the Ameraucana (much more common and easier to deal with than the temperamental Araucana due to its lethal tufting gene and poor fertility because of rumplessness).

That meant EEs, first generation hybrid, generally had beard/muff, pea comb, and green legs.

Now, being cheaper to do so, hatcheries are breeding EE to EE to produce hybrids of hybrids...but calling them Ameraucana or EE..and note how easy it is to breed out the blue gene...These new hybrids look just like "regular" birds as by second generation the birds have single combs (often), yellow legs (usually), and no beard/muff.

Now there are no markers to know that Ameraucana was a close generation back with that all important blue gene. For those breeding, they think they'll get blue eggs, so they sell their chicks as green layer EEs. (Easter Egger was actually a scandalous practice in the early development of the Chilean Araucana to pass off mixed mutts as valuable blue gene birds.)

This hatchery breeding of EE to EE, along with backyard "Ameraucanas" floods the market with mutts and unknown parentage along with wrong labels.

So I totally get the backyard fun, but having had a really hard time finding true Ameraucana to be certain of one of my "players," I also get the frustration with having mutts in the middle of things.

Clear labeling is important. If the hatcheries would stop selling as Ameraucana but clearly label EE and hybrid, a lot of confusion would be solved.

LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

At risk of starting to wax on too long,

The term Ameraucana is the result of major conflicts within the Araucana breeding history.

The original birds were from the Araucana region from Chile. Even at that time they were mixed breed birds as European domestic stock had infiltrated the native fowl.

Out of this Chilean heritage came the bird we think of as Araucana, but there were different forms....a tufted rumpless and a tailed type. These had been refined by a Spanish professor (whose name escapes me at the moment) and shown on Exhibit in Chile in the early 1900's.

British interests were piqued, and some of the blue layers came back to England and then to Europe.

From these lines developed the Araucana, which in Europe is tailed, and the Cream Legbar (from Punnett's studies).

In America there was a furious debate as to what the Araucana should look like. There were breeders with muffs and tails and there were breeders with tufts and no tails. The rumpless tufted side won out with acceptance into the APA first, sometime in the 70's.

This left a lot of breeders with muffed and tailed types out in the cold as they could not show in the Araucana category any longer.

So.....they created their own category. They created the American Araucana....or Ameraucana. That standard was accepted in the early 1980's.

So in America, Araucana must be willow legged, pea comb, tufted (although you have to have tuftless to breed as tufted to tufted is lethal), and rumpless.

The Ameraucana is pea combed, muffed, slate or willow legged, 8 standard colors, and tailed.

In Europe, the Araucana standards remained with tufts and tails and even muffs. (By now I've forgotten who has what standard....I think the Australian also has crests).

Ah yes, the convoluted history of those Chilean birds, which were mixed types with tails, tufts, crests, muffs, blue or brown eggs...to start a breeders frenzy in Victorian Europe spilling over to today.

LofMc

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I think I can see both sides of the picture.

Most backyard owners simply want pretty eggs and healthy birds. Providing EEs for them by the hatcheries is profitable for the hatchery and fun for the owner.

Usually the EE was bred from the Ameraucana (much more common and easier to deal with than the temperamental Araucana due to its lethal tufting gene and poor fertility because of rumplessness).

That meant EEs, first generation hybrid, generally had beard/muff, pea comb, and green legs.

Now, being cheaper to do so, hatcheries are breeding EE to EE to produce hybrids of hybrids...but calling them Ameraucana or EE..and note how easy it is to breed out the blue gene...These new hybrids look just like "regular" birds as by second generation the birds have single combs (often), yellow legs (usually), and no beard/muff.

Now there are no markers to know that Ameraucana was a close generation back with that all important blue gene. For those breeding, they think they'll get blue eggs, so they sell their chicks as green layer EEs. (Easter Egger was actually a scandalous practice in the early development of the Chilean Araucana to pass off mixed mutts as valuable blue gene birds.)

This hatchery breeding of EE to EE, along with backyard "Ameraucanas" floods the market with mutts and unknown parentage along with wrong labels.

So I totally get the backyard fun, but having had a really hard time finding true Ameraucana to be certain of one of my "players," I also get the frustration with having mutts in the middle of things.

Clear labeling is important. If the hatcheries would stop selling as Ameraucana but clearly label EE and hybrid, a lot of confusion would be solved.

LofMc

Exactly. I have come to understand the scandalous side of it. It was before I was in chickens...but it can be a hot topic.

Many feel they have "Ameraucanas" and breed without realizing they are EEs. It's hard for people to believe that their "purebreds" from a hatchery are just EEs...thus compounding the confusion and passing along incorrect information.

I like my EEs. I feel badly for any breed that becomes extremely popular.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Worse is those who breed Red Sexlinks together thinking they are producing Red Sexlink (breed) and selling them as such.

As you know, the sex linkage only works for the first generation and is a hybrid, not a breed that breeds true.

Which is why BYC is so important. We backyarders can have a lot of fun but help each other by clearing up misconceptions and errors that cause harm to others.

It is no fun breeding from an EE to find you've got brown eggs.

It is no fun getting "RSL" chicks to have half roosters.

LofMc

 

[LilJoe]

I dont understand the lethal gene very well.

How is breeding tufted to tufted lethal?

 

[LilJoe]

I dont understand the lethal gene very well.

How is breeding tufted to tufted lethal?

 

[LilJoe]

Sorry for accidentally posting so much !

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Sorry for accidentally posting so much !

(It's happened to me too)

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I don't know why it is lethal, but somehow when the tufting gene is present in both parents, 25% of the chicks die in the shell.

The tufting gene is a mutation that causes something else to also not form well.

So to get tufted birds, you must breed a tufted parent to a non-tufted parent...if I remember right it gives you about 50/50 of tuft and non-tufted.

Rumplessness is actually dominant, but it is not a good dominant as being tail-less, the roosters don't have anything to anchor themselves as they breed which creates lower fertility.

The Chilean natives knew this, but they believed the rumpless birds would be "safer" not having a tail, and somehow preferred the tufting, possibly for the looks?

Which is why the non-tufted and tailed variety (brown layer) was used to breed with the rumpless and tufted variety (blue layer) even back then with the Chilean natives....which....in the irony would have been...wait for it....EASTER EGGERS.

LofMc