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I know exactly what you mean. Some folks take this way too seriously! I have both pure ameraucanas and EEs and I love 'em all. Ok, first off all ameraucanas originally come from EEs. An EE is basically a mutt bird (like me, lol) that carries the blue egg and pea comb gene. An EE can lay any color egg, blue, green, pink, brown... An ameraucana
should lay a blue or blue/green egg.
Both have pea combs. Ameraucanas must conform to the standards which means slate/black colored legs (EEs usually have green legs but this varies), bay eyes, standard colors (some of which have not been accepted by the APA, like lavenders), have beards and muffs... I have black and wheaten ameraucanas and none of them lay a perfectly blue egg. My EEs however are definitely grenn layers except for the couple that lay a brown egg.
Since all ameraucanas are originally from EEs they all have the potential to lay an egg that is not blue, even though the blue gene is dominate, because all it takes to get a recessive gene to pop up is for both parents to carry the recessive gene and all ameraucanas do. Maybe most breeders are so touchy because they know that their birds are not perfect yet (as a breed I mean). That's why I like them though, they are a challenge.
Here's a link that has more info (+ more links to even more info).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameraucana
Hope this helps!
Thank you for this explanation. It is very helpful. I have a question. I was told my "Ameraucana" was really an EE, which I fully believe the experts on here. I would love to know why on her. She has blackish gray legs, not green, but she lays olive eggs. (Does laying olive eggs make her an EE)
Here is her picture. Again I believe the experts, I would just like to know what about her makes her an EE not Ameraucana. Does that make sense?