My EE has cute tufts on her ears .

[Granny23]

My EE Rosie had tufts of feathers over her ears. Other EE I see on here don't. Why? Just a breed thing? It's cute actually. Not a good picture. Tomorrow I can post a better one.

 

[DobieLover]

Most of the EEs I see here have them. All of mine do. They are called muffs. She also has a beard.
Buff EE bottom left with muffs and beard.

 

[Folly's place]

EEs can have muffs and beards, or not. I like the puffy faces a lot!
Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

My EE Rosie had tufts of feathers over her ears. Other EE I see on here don't. Why? Just a breed thing? It's cute actually. Not a good picture. Tomorrow I can post a better one.

This could be a very long complicated answer. This link about the development of the Ameraucana breed from EE's clears up a lot of misconceptions about EE's.

http://ameraucana.org/DnLd/Early History by Richard Orr.pdf

But most people really aren't that interested so I'll try to be shorter. EE's are not a breed. There are no breed standards. An EE can lay a blue, green, white, brown, or pink egg. An EE can have a pea, rose, single, or walnut comb. They can have feathers in any color or pattern. They might or might not have tufts, muffs, beards, or crests. They may be bantam or full sized fowl. Since they are not a breed they can look like anything.

When the Ameraucana breed was developed, the breeders decided to give them muffs. When the Araucana breed was developed in the US the breeders decided to give them tufts. Other countries sometimes chose differently when they developed their Araucana breeds.

Why do some EE's have muffs or tufts and others don't? Because some inherit them from their parents, some don't.

 

[Granny23]

This could be a very long complicated answer. This link about the development of the Ameraucana breed from EE's clears up a lot of misconceptions about EE's.

http://ameraucana.org/DnLd/Early History by Richard Orr.pdf

But most people really aren't that interested so I'll try to be shorter. EE's are not a breed. There are no breed standards. An EE can lay a blue, green, white, brown, or pink egg. An EE can have a pea, rose, single, or walnut comb. They can have feathers in any color or pattern. They might or might not have tufts, muffs, beards, or crests. They may be bantam or full sized fowl. Since they are not a breed they can look like anything.

When the Ameraucana breed was developed, the breeders decided to give them muffs. When the Araucana breed was developed in the US the breeders decided to give them tufts. Other countries sometimes chose differently when they developed their Araucana breeds.

Why do some EE's have muffs or tufts and others don't? Because some inherit them from their parents, some don't.

Well that makes it easy. So Araucanas dont necessarily lay colored eggs either. Ok. Wow. Thanks!

 

[Granny23]

EEs can have muffs and beards, or not. I like the puffy faces a lot!
Mary

yes they are so cute!!

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

Yes purebred auracaunas lay blue eggs too. Muffs, tufts, beards, pea combs and blue egg genes come from Ameraucana and Auracauna pure breeds. I fell in love with their cute fuzzy faces as soon as i saw them, & had to have me some. Was at first disappointed to learn i got Easter Eggers and not "Ameraucaunas" as advertised. But once i realized the huge varieties of feather colors and egg colors amongst Easter Eggers, i wouldnt trade mine for "pure" blue layer breeds. I think Easter Eggers are perfect just the way they are.

 

[Granny23]

Yes purebred auracaunas lay blue eggs too. Muffs, tufts, beards, pea combs and blue egg genes come from Ameraucana and Auracauna pure breeds. I fell in love with their cute fuzzy faces as soon as i saw them, & had to have me some. Was at first disappointed to learn i got Easter Eggers and not "Ameraucaunas" as advertised. But once i realized the huge varieties of feather colors and egg colors amongst Easter Eggers, i wouldnt trade mine for "pure" blue layer breeds. I think Easter Eggers are perfect just the way they are.
View attachment 2851475

My Rosie is so sweet and has the cutest face. Thanks I agree.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Well that makes it easy. So Araucanas dont necessarily lay colored eggs either. Ok. Wow. Thanks!

Araucana are a breed so they have breed standards. One of those standards (at least in the US) is that they have to lay blue eggs . The same thing is true about Ameraucana, they are a breed and one of their breed standards is that they have to lay blue eggs. EE's are not a breed so they don't have breed standards, they can lay any color of egg possible.

One thing that confuses it is that some hatcheries had colored egg laying flocks before the Araucana and Ameraucana breeds were developed. They sold these colored egg layers under different marketing names, many called them Araucana. Even after the breeds were developed many hatcheries never changed their marketing names or switched to true Araucana or Ameraucana. There is a lot of confusion out there about names.

But confusion is understandable, they started out confused. I copied an excerpt from the link above that explains how two different breeds were combined and mistakenly called another breed.

No history of the “Ameraucana” could be complete without understanding some of the history of the “Araucana” breed. But one should first understand that the “Araucana” as we know it, was never a “pure” breed, even in Chile.

To generalize the situation as briefly as possible; going back prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, the Mapuche Indians in Chile had TWO breeds of chickens raised in different areas of the country: One they called the “Collonca”, which was small, laid BLUE eggs, was rumpless, and had a small single comb; the other they called the “Quetro” or “Quetero”, derived from their word “kerto” meaning stammering, referring to its peculiar crow. The “Quetro” was TUFTED, had a flowing tail, pea comb, and laid brown eggs --- “Tufted rumpless” occurred when a rumpless bird crossed with a tufted tailed bird, but these offspring were rare. The latter were later called “Collonca de Arêtes” by the Spanish, meaning “Collonca with Earrings”. These “Collonca de Arêtes” were blue egg layers, since the blue egg gene is dominant.

In 1556, the Mapuche Indians were attacked again by the Spanish, and an epic poem named “La Araucana”, was written by Alonso de Ercilla about their bravery. This name later stuck with the Indians, and subsequently with their chickens. The name derives from the Gulf of Arauco, near Conception, Chile.

Dr. Rueben Bustos, a chicken expert in Chile, had himself developed a strain of the so-called “Collonca de Arêtes”, and wrote about the Araucanas in his country, in 1914. But these breeds remained quite unknown to the world until Professor Salvador Castello, a Spanish poultry expert, who had observed and photographed some “Collonca de Arêtes” at an exhibition in Santiago, Chile, in 1914, later reported on these birds in 1921 in a paper to the First World’s Poultry Congress in the Hague, Holland, causing a flurry of excitement throughout the poultry world. Prof. Castello did not realize at that time that the “breed” that he had seen and described was NOT native fowl, as he had been told by Dr. Bustos, but rather were the product of Dr. Bustos’ many years of selective breeding. Professor Castello later corrected himself in 1924 – but by then the wave of interest in these birds had already begun, and many erroneous ideas had already developed, based upon the original 1921 paper, which was erroneous

My Rosie is so sweet and has the cutest face. Thanks I agree.

The bottom like is that any of them are just chickens. Names or breed doesn't really matter as long as you are happy with them.

 

[Granny23]

Thankyou for the info!! It's so interesting. If Im going to have interesting chickens then Id like to know all the interesting stuff about them!!!