Rare Lavender Ameraucana

[charlotteda]

Why are nice quality lavender ameraucana LF so hard to find? There are many more breeders of BBS it seems. Do they have more problems like cross-beak or bad feathers than the other ameraucana?

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Why are nice quality lavender ameraucana LF so hard to find? There are many more breeders of BBS it seems. Do they have more problems like cross-beak or bad feathers than the other ameraucana?

I suppose it depends on what you mean?

Ameraucana aren't terribly common. And... the higher price is not helping.
They aren't ideal for eggs or meat compared to many other breeds.
For people who like the blue-green eggs, or beard and muffs? There are plenty of options for those traits.

As far as "bad feathers"... technically yes.
The Lavender color (aka "Self Blue". I prefer the term Lavender) has a nasty habit of "shredded" feathers.

You can combat that by crossing a Lavender with Black (all offspring will be Lavender Split, and visually black)
And Lav Split x Lavender (all chicks will either be Lav Split, or Lavender)
*you can also do Lav Split x Lav Split, but won't know which chicks are split or not.

However, I often see (ESPECIALLY with Lavender Ameraucana) people breeding Lav x Lav. Which gives those shredded feathers.

As far as BBS being more common, I can't explain that.
But Lavender is the newest Ameraucana color.
Even Splash was only accepted about a decade ago, I think?

It's really difficult to find the other colors.

*edit typo

 

[OnlySympathy]

As far as "bad feathers"... technically yes.
The Lavender color (aka "Self Blue". I prefer the term Lavender) has a nasty habit of "shredded" feathers.

You can combat that by crossing a Lavender with Black (all offspring with be Lavender Split, and visually black)
And Lav Split x Lavender (all chicks will either be Lav Split, or Lavender)
*you can also do Lav Split x Lav Split, but won't know which chicks are split or not.

However, I often see (ESPECIALLY with Lavender Ameraucana) people breeding Lav x Lav. Which gives those shredded feathers

From what I’ve read a decent amount of good quality lines of lavender/self blue Ameraucanas have had the shredding bred out of them (for the most part). It can still pop up but with good breeding practices such as culling low quality birds and not just breeding lav to lav every single time like you said it can make shredding a minimal issue.

 

[charlotteda]

I suppose it depends on what you mean?

Ameraucana aren't terribly common. And... the higher price is not helping.
They aren't ideal for eggs or meat compared to many other breeds.
For people who like the blue-green eggs, or beard and muffs? There are plenty of options for those traits.

As far as "bad feathers"... technically yes.
The Lavender color (aka "Self Blue". I prefer the term Lavender) has a nasty habit of "shredded" feathers.

You can combat that by crossing a Lavender with Black (all offspring will be Lavender Split, and visually black)
And Lav Split x Lavender (all chicks will either be Lav Split, or Lavender)
*you can also do Lav Split x Lav Split, but won't know which chicks are split or not.

However, I often see (ESPECIALLY with Lavender Ameraucana) people breeding Lav x Lav. Which gives those shredded feathers.

As far as BBS being more common, I can't explain that.
But Lavender is the newest Ameraucana color.
Even Splash was only accepted about a decade ago, I think?

It's really difficult to find the other colors.

*edit typo

Thank you for the reply. I love the blue eggs, muffs and sweet personality of the 10 yr old girl I have. I want more like her-but I may need to move on to another breed.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Thank you for the reply. I love the blue eggs, muffs and sweet personality of the 10 yr old girl I have. I want more like her-but I may need to move on to another breed.

You can certainly find them
But as you said, they aren't as easy to find.
I'm aware of 1 hatchery that advertises Ameraucana in Lavender, Buff, White, "Ermine" (paint), and Blue, Black, Splash. (But that means shipped chicks)
*I've seen them advertised, but I haven't purchased from them.

You might also find people selling hatching eggs from their Lav Ameraucana flock.