NOT an ameraucana

[samanthaoverton]

Hello everyone, so I purchased 3 chicks a month ago. They were supposed to be ameraucanas. I knew for a long time the black one wasnt. They are a month old. Anybody know what the black one is. Also tell me if the other two are ameraucana. I'm speculating the black one is either a black Orpington or jersey giant. Leaning toward Orpington because of the rounded almost rumples type feathers on the butt. The other two may or may not be ameraucanas..they have neither muffs nor beards. I really wanted blue egg layers ideas anyone? Ignore the white chickens.

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

All Easter Eggers. The black is actually the closest to appearing to be an Ameraucana

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I was just typing the same exact thing! OP, where did you get these birds? Some hatcheries do have true Ameraucanas now, but most feed stores only carry Easter-eggers mislabeled as such.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The lightest colored one does not have a feather coloration that aligns with any pure variety of Ameraucana, so she's definitely not one.

There are several reasons why the black one might be larger or chunkier, such as that that one might be a cockerel. It's also possible that that one is a different mix than the others. Most of your classically mislabeled-as-Ameraucanas Easter-eggers are hatched from Easter-egger parents, but recently a lot of hatcheries have started breeding essentially 'designer breed' Easter-eggers by crossing in other breeds. The black one may just have different parentage than the others and is going to be a larger bird because of that.

You for sure have three birds with the potential to lay blue or green eggs, though!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

This is awesome. I didn't know Easter eggers could vary in size too.

Oh, definitely! Some of them are based on Legbar mixes and look completely different than what most people picture as an Easter-egger! Since 'Easter-egger' is more of a colloquialism than a term with a definite definition, Easter-eggers literally can look like anything at all. The common factor only seems to be having ancestry with the blue egg shell gene.

So if you cross an Easter egger hen with a brown egg layer roo, would the chicks lay different colors? Or just brown. I'm new to Easter eggers.

It really depends on what genes are being brought into the picture by both parents. If your Easter-egger hen has two copies of the blue shell gene, then all of her offspring will inherit one copy of it and her daughters with a brown egg rooster will lay shades of green. If she only has one copy of the blue shell gene, only half of her offspring inherit it from her, so half of her daughters would be green eggers and half brown eggers. The shades would depend on if she's a green egger as well or a blue egger, and what brown genes the rooster has. My understanding is that there are a ton of genes controlling brown color on eggs, so there's a whole lot of variablity there.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

Chicken feet are disturbing enough on their own. I haven't owned silkies before, but I'm talking 2-3 extras here.

Like this?

 

[ashcons]

@samanthaoverton
I'll try to remember. They're about 6w right now and aside from their freak feet, are tough to tell apart from our copper marans at that age. At a glance, the only way I can tell is they look like they've got dark brown eye shadow on.

 

[ihatedarkroast]

Wife brought home some "favacaunas" that have a disturbing number of toes.

Woow. I've never heard of these before... But since I just got a salmon favrolles cockerel, this time next year I will know exactly what you mean. Hahaha

 

[SilverBirds]

There is a chance the lightest colored one is an Ameraucana, but most likely all three are EEsmwhich you can still get green/blue eggs from.

 

[samanthaoverton]

I was wondering if they were actual ameraucana. I've read on here that they're not as easy to get a hold of. And Easter eggers are confused with them.