So im starting an EE/Ameraucana/blue egg project

[Roosterfry]

This is a little cockeral that I hatched.

 

[Roosterfry]

A picture of a couple eggs I collected yesterday next to a white leghorn egg

 

[Roosterfry]

These are three pullets I hatched, my favorite feather coloring so far is on the pullets and my mother hen. Not so much of a fan of the colors on the cockeral. but the solid white pullets with gray feathering on their heads and necks I like. I need to do some work on leg color as well.

 

[cashdl]

Not to beat a dead horse but the leg color is directly tied into the skin color. All those birds have yellow skin so you will need to introduce an actual white skinned bird if you are hoping to get someday breed to ameraucana standard.

The strange thing is, I actually have a couple of araucanas that I purchased years ago that have white skin, not yellow skin, and believe it or not I didnt' notice untill I was thinking about it the other day and went to look. They are not in my breeding pens so it isn't a worry, but was interesting all the same.

The majority of my araucanas lay a very beautiful blue egg similar or slightly darker than those pictured. I have two that lay greenish eggs.

I think your project is admirable and sounds interesting. It will take you 3 times longer to get to the standard when using EE's instead of ameraucanas, but I understand the mechanics of supply and availability. You work with what you can get.

Lanae

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

I think it would be very interesting to really focus on producing a production strain of blue egg layers. It seems like some of the hatcheries may be doing this and doing well with it, but it's difficult to tell which ones. If you could nail down egg color, production rates, and egg size...I would honestly not care what color the bird is, or what color its skin or legs are! The more colors the better, in fact.

It looks like your eggs are a beautiful light blue color and VERY large. If you can get that with the lay rates of a leghorn or Isa Brown...you'd really have something awesome!

 

[Roosterfry]

I'm going to keep ya'll updated on the progress!

 

[Roosterfry]

Well there has been a hink in my plans... I was going to breed a apa standard white ameraucana into my project to get closer to the finished product and add genetic diversity. The person who had the white apa standard ameraucanas is MIA... So I've given up on that avenue. But I still have my one prettiest egg laying white hen with blue around her head and her offspring pullets and cockerals and breeding those together would be an option for just blue egg color but leg color and an un desired redding mixed color is in the cockerals and pullets that I don't prefer. I just put her in a pen with a pair of blue wheaten ameraucanas they are supposed to be very good stock. I looked at the wheaten hens egg next to mine and oddly my hen lays a light but to my eyes more pur blue than the wheaten, but the wheatens egg is prettier in some ways because it contains a darker blue gene but has a very faint brown gene making it sort of light aqua or bluish green. I'm gonna be interested to see what the offspring would lay and feather pattern would look like from this cross between blue wheaten ameraucana roo and my very special EE hen!?

 

[char259]

Very interesting project but I get SO CONFUSED when ya'll start talking about Ameraucana/Araucanas/Easter Egger differences!

 

[Roosterfry]

Quote:
I know it does get confusing, just depends on who you ask, check out The Ameraucana Club of America, and remember Ameraucanas, Araucanas and Easter Eggers are different breeds with different set standards. But all can lay a blue or blue green egg. And there's also some good discussions on here under the topics breeds/genetics

 

[chickendales]

next year i well be play with the lavenders to diffrent colors and then year after i well be breeding them back to lavender to see if i get the = of like a porcelin i kept wheaten hen and a silver to breed to my lavenders