To backup the presented information:
http://ameraucanabreedersclub.org/history.html
a breed is NOT a BREED until the APA or ABA say it’s a “BREED”. For those who may not know the breed characteristics, “Ameraucanas” are first and foremost BLUE EGG layers. They MUST have “pea combs”, and be bearded and muffed and tailed, and CANNOT have any tufts. They also MUST have slate blue legs, and red ear lobes (females pale).
Back in the day....
Responding to a general “Araucana fever”, due to their promotions for “Easter Egg” chickens, and false and wildly exaggerated claims about the extra healthfulness of Araucana eggs, commercial hatcheries expanded a frantic effort to outcross blue egg laying “Araucanas” with everything else, and sell them as “Araucanas”, when they were nothing more than mongrels (which sales are still continuing today).
....in 1976, the APA accepted the description recommended by the Standard Revision Committee, which required “ARAUCANAS” to be tufted and rumpless... thereafter formally DISQUALIFYING all birds formerly shown as “Araucanas” which were bearded, muffed, and tailed.
....those breeders who had been carefully breeding and improving the bearded muffed types of “Araucanas”, were out in the cold, ruled “out” for exhibit as no longer “Araucanas”. Nevertheless those bearded types were continuing to be shown, as “Araucanas” – sometimes as “American Araucanas”
Enter Don Cable and Mike Gilbert....
....they discussed forming a club for the purpose of seeking ABA recognition of this “new breed”.
The club was formed in the summer of 1978 (so far without a name), with eleven Charter members, from all points of the country – few, if any, of which knew each other personally – and even Dorian Roxburgh, Secretary of the British Araucana Club. Included among these original members was the late Frank L. Gary, Chairman of the ABA Standard Revision Committee.
The situation in 1978 was a mixed bag at best. Commercial hatcheries had continued selling anything that laid an egg other than white as “Araucanas” or “Easter Egg” chickens – and were making outrageous claims about the superiority of the “Araucana” eggs for higher protein and lower cholesterol, which were totally FALSE. With the “Araucana fever” that had developed, everyone wanted to try their hand at this new promotion.
The question of breed name, weights, shank color, etc. were all put to a VOTE, and those points that gained the majority of votes were compiled by Mike Gilbert into a proposed Standard. There was some support for the name “American Araucana”, but the name “Ameraucana” won out.
The following May 1980, The Board of Directors of the ABA voted unanimously to accept the “Ameraucana” bantam. The proposed Standard written by Mike Gilbert, based on the members’ voting, and with editing assistance from Don Cable and others, was accepted by the ABA, without change.
In 1983, the ABA accepted additional varieties - White, Wheaten, Black, Blue, Blue Wheaten, Brown red, Buff and Silver.
....the following year in Wisconsin, Mike Gilbert was present to hear the great news, and Don received a letter from the APA President that the APA Board of Directors had voted unanimously to accept the ‘AMERAUCANA” Standard, approving the acceptance of all eight varieties of the bantams, AND THE SAME VARIETIES IN THE LARGE FOWL AS WELL.
It's pretty amazing that a small group of breeders "created" a new breed and got it recognized by both organizations in two sizes and multiple varieties in less than 10 years. I encourage you to read the entire article, it's quite interesting.
And the creators never stopped. The Self Blue LF variety was accepted in 2020, and they're working on Splash and bantams for both now. Both clubs are working together on this too!
What we're seeing today is just a repeat of what happened in the 70's with the Araucana, but if you look up an Araucana today, it looks completely different than most chickens and is pretty hard to find. The internet age brought about widespread misspellings and slight variations on brand names in order to sideskirt lawsuits and confuse consumers on brand identities. Even more recently, we have breeders all over the place inventing their own breeds as a marketing ploy. If people owned chickens like they do dogs and cats, they'd know the difference between a purebred and a mixed breed (sometimes based on price alone). Just like with toilet paper, we may not ever know the actual origin of the rush to acquire chickens that has happened in the last year, but I believe that has had a lot to do with fueling the new "Americana Fever" (thankfully they're most often called easter eggers, but the odd few are more than enough to cause this crap show). And although there have been some unfortunate side-effects from the purposeful misrepresentation of the breed, even the most disciplined breeders would have to agree that it's done a lot for the breed and maybe even their pocketbooks.
As more people learn what the purebred standard is, things should slowly settle down and some of the bad traits and breeders can be eliminated. It may even be an opportunity for the original creators, most of whom are still alive, to find new, passionate breeders to personally pass along their knowledge to. How often does something like that happen? A renaissance of your own making, in your own lifetime? (I mean, if you ignore all the reboots of things directly aimed at 40-somethings in the past decade.)
As one of those 40-somethings, I'm cool with carrying the baton down the track for a breed that was conceived the same time I was. Who else gets to do something like that?
