If you like the looks if those Easter eggers, I say breed them and have fun. You're not going to be able to predict the colors you get, but that's part of the excitement! I just set some green eggs under my little broody--daddies are either a pure barred rock or some part-barred birds.....we'll see who comes out looking like what!
Well, no they are no Breed Perfect, I realize that..I just figured they were MOSTLY Am-cana and I liked what I saw and was dealing with...
Not really bad news....I knew they weren't Pure Breeds. But I do like them very much...
However, someday soon I would like a Pure Breed to work with. Any suggestions? I live in VERY southwest Florida, hot humid most of the year. Looking for layers or dual purpose. I just find that these conditions here aren't pleasant for all animals not indigenous to this area.
I don't even know if you can call them mostly Ameraucana at this point. Easter Eggers are just mutts that carry the blue egg gene. That's pretty much all you can say about them as they could be made by so many different crosses it's almost impossible to guess.
Chicken breeding isn't like horse breeding. You cross an Arabian with anything else, you get a half-Arabian. But with chickens, if they don't come near the Standard of Perfection, they aren't that breed even if the parents were. You could technically cross two "pure" Ameraucanas and get an Easter Egger from the match if there were some weird color throwbacks and non-standard colors came out. Or you could cross in some blood from another breed, then breed back towards Ameraucana until you were getting something approaching the Standard of Perfection for the breed, and it would count as a purebred again. With horses, you couldn't add some Morgan blood to your Arabians but call the foal Arabian just because it looked like one--there's a paper trail with horses, dogs, cats, cows, etc. that doesn't exist with chickens.
As far as breeds for South Florida, I'd go with Mediterranean breeds. Leghorns, for example, come in pretty colors and the white variety are fantastic layers. Mediterranean breeds were bred to handle hot weather, which is why they have such large combs. http://www.afn.org/~poultry/breeds/mediterr.htm
I think I enjoy that aspect also....My Roo has Australops, RI Reds, Barred Rock and Buff Orps as his harem and I have seen babies from almost all of them hens...The variety is astounding and fun.
Good point on the breeding comparison with horses. Very clear and understandable esp since I have an ArabAp and a Paso Fino! LOL
I get that!
So If I understand you correctly, even though they are EEggers, I may get a offspring that may carry all the Standards of Perfection, but chances are slim and even if I did his/her offspring would still throw off an "imperfect" offspring?
So how the heck can any say their flock is purebred other than a living history of perfect offspring?
Good point on the breeding comparison with horses. Very clear and understandable esp since I have an ArabAp and a Paso Fino! LOL
I get that!
So If I understand you correctly, even though they are EEggers, I may get a offspring that may carry all the Standards of Perfection, but chances are slim and even if I did his/her offspring would still throw off an "imperfect" offspring?
So how the heck can any say their flock is purebred other than a living history of perfect offspring?
I suppose it is possible to get an Ameraucana looking bird from your EEs although the chance would be slim, but you could show that bird and not be disqualified. It wouldn't breed true, though. Breeding true to the standard seems to be the baseline criterion for bird "breeds."
It's because chickens don't have papers, so there is no official record of the matings and all the various generations of the breed. Personally, having bred horses and cows and dogs, this annoys the crap out of me. I can't think of any other breed of animal that you could cross in another breed in order to, for example, change the basic color of the animal and still have the offspring be considered that breed, but with birds that's the way it works (Although, to complicate things, your new color of Ameraucana would be considered an EE unless the Standard of Perfection was changed to call that new color a standard color).
I guess it's most like Standardbreds--if they can't trot/pace a standard mile, they're not registerable even though they came from parents that are Standardbreds.
With your bunch, however, you have a real mixed bag and don't know what the other breeds used were. I'd say chances are likely that you have Ameraucana crosses, but you could also have birds that were EExEE, or EE x something else. I don't think you have Araucana blood there because the birds have rumps and beards, not tufts.
One thing about "purebred," breeder-bred chickens, they really are much more standard than hatchery birds. I've had hundreds of EEs so far (I really like them and their rainbow eggs) and hundreds of hatchery birds. This year I ordered some pure Ameraucana hatching eggs from John Blehm lines. When they hatched I could see the difference from my usual mutt birds--all the chicks were the same size, and so regular I couldn't really tell them apart. Now that they're feathered, they still are all very similar to each other and are clearly a "breed" where my EEs are not. Even the eggs they hatched from were so similar to each other that I couldn't tell each egg apart. There was definitely some shared heritage there that's missing in my mutts and hatchery birds.
Ahhhhh.....I see. Youre so right , I can definitely tell all my chicks apart hours after they are born because each one is so unique. I guess that is contrary to the "standards".
Outstanding response. Thank you.
Papers for chickens! Imagine that! Good luck keeping track of all those "matings"! I cant keep track of the one rooster I have and his lack of impulse control, LOL.
I plan on breeding my birds based on personality, health, and laying ability. Im going to end up with a ton of mutts (but i was sold an australorp with a pea comb and a rhode island red with penciling, so.....yeah.)
If you like the look of a bird, breed for that look until you perfect your strain.
