Mystery Breed

[tianac2]

We got a handful of chicks from a local breeder back in November, 3 of which we were told were Ameraucanas. One of them definitely is - huge beard and cheek muffs. One of them looks nothing like an Ameraucana and we're pretty sure is actually a Welsummer. The third one though, we can't tell at all. She doesn't look like an Ameraucana, but she doesn't look particularly like anything else that we're familiar with either (although to be fair, we don't have a ton of experience with chicken breeds). So, here she is:



She's the white fluff ball in the top right. She was very white with random black flecks. This was at 1 day old.



Here she is at about 1.5 weeks. Still white with random black flecks, but starting to get more brown. I don't have any more good pictures until 8 weeks when she has changed coloration significantly:



She's the one furthest to the right. Now mostly very dark brown/auburn with a fair amount of black.



Here she is today at ~15-16 weeks. She is the one closest to the camera (besides the barred rock trying to photobomb...) Incidentally, the one beyond the mystery chicken is the one that was supposed to be an Ameraucana but we now suspect is actually a Welsummer.



Here she is today also. She's right in the middle between our black australorp and a barred rock.


Thanks for any help that you might have!

 

[donrae]

besides the Rocks, this pic has three Easter Egger hens. None of them are Ameraucanas or Welsummers. Easter eggers are commonly sold by hatcheries as Ameraucans, but in reality they're generic birds with the blue/green egg genes, they don't meet a breed standard. Most have dark or green legs, puffy cheeks/beard and pea combs, but since they're non-standard, they don't necessarily always have those traits. Having a pea comb means they have a higher chance of laying blue or green eggs for you.

 

[tianac2]

Thanks for the welcome! The one toward the back is a black star, the 3rd "Ameraucana" isn't in the picture. That's disappointing though. We went through a smallish local breeder that came highly recommended and was generally well regarded, so I thought we'd avoided the problem with Easter Eggers being called Ameraucanas. Either way, we're not looking to breed them, so it doesn't really matter, I was just curious.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

x2...mixed breeds with EE blood in them, or simply barnyard mixes...probably mixes of EE's with EE's which means those old Ameraucana genes get farther and farther back so the beards/muffs drop away.

I do not believe you have a Welsummer...your photo shows wrong earlobe color (Welsummers have red earlobes) and overall wrong appearance (but it is hard to tell from the odd posture). Her coloring is more like EE patterning. It may be a Welsummer mix with EE. I have a Welsummer/RIR mix, and a pure Welsummer. The Welsummer coloring seems to come through in a lot of the mixes...but alas not the dark eggs. It is highly unlikely your bird will lay dark brown eggs even if there is Welsummer mix in it.

Here is a good article that describes the distinctions with the EE vs. Ameraucana.
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2011/09/ameraucana-easter-egger-or-araucana.html

You'll see what I mean by the typical partridge patterning with heavy black streaking in the typical EE neck pattern.

vs.

Welsummer...red earlobes and penciling:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGP/Wels/BRKWelsummers.html (Not all birds pictured on this site are great examples, but you can see the color ranges)

Good news is...they all look like hens
Lady of McCamley

 

[KieksterChicken]

Lol..Lady of McCamly beat me to it with the chicken chick link. Ditto on what she said too. I hope your EE's lay a lot of blue eggs for you. Keeping my fingers crossed for you that most of them inherited the blue egg gene.