Tufted & Rumpless Araucana. Dont know what Im doing... help.

[texascowboy1979]

Ok. So I have chickens... I dont really know the breeds except for Meat / Fighting... thats all i all know about chickens. any hoo... I ordered some Tufted Araucana hatching eggs back in Sept... out of 20 eggs... only 10 hatched and only 2 were tufted and they both happed to be female.... and by tufted I mean feathers sticking out of there neck... not those little ear muffs that everyone knows about. See picture below.

Chicks

Black Hen

Gray hen

Any hoo. As far as not knowing what Im doing... what am I supposed to breed for? Or should I just breed at random? My little Tufted females were born on Sept 25th 2009. They are both small. I guess i was expecting a regular size chicken... My hens are about 6 to 8 inches high. Actually... all 10 chicks hatched from that batch are about the same hight. From that batch of eggs... I got two rumpless males with no tufts...

I also have an Ameraucana young male rooster born about the same time, give or take a day. he is about 1.5 to twice as big as my batch born on Sept 25th. My ameraucana Male has a tail.

My other chickens on the ranch consist of Fighting hens, 2 meat hens, and one Red Rooster who looks like he might be 1/4 or mabye less fighting rooster. The Red Rooster is by far the largest rooster on the Ranch I have. Red Rooster is twice the size of my Ameraucana Male.

My goal would be to have a bigger chicken with tufts.

By the way... I know the Tufted Gene is a Leathel Gene when its a double GENE "TT", but seeing as how I only have tufted females... a "TT" is imposible... I can only get "Tt" or "tt".

So. my question to you... Who should breed my 2 tufted females when the time is right?

Should it be:

A: Rumpless Black male same size as my tufted females?

B: Rumpless White male same size as my tufted females?

C: Ameraucana male that is about 1.5 to 2 times bigger?

or
D: Red Rooster who is much bigger... "I personally dont think Rooster Red would make a good choice"

 

[rhoda_bruce]

use the araucana roos, trying to keep true to colors if possible. I only have one blue and its a rooster. I will be putting him with 2 americana hens that have a bluish color to them and probably breeding them to the second or third generation. Unfortunately he has a tail. If you would be closer to me I would trade you my blue for your white rooster or vice-versa. Pay attention to foot color also. I am also in communication with someone that knows a bit about genetics and she wants me to try my blacks that have rust colored bleeds with my blue rooster, with the hope that he will remove the bleeds from the black, plus give me a few blue chicks. I have a lot of work to do with mine also.

 

[texascowboy1979]

As far as standards... are they supposed to be solid? What color are there leggs supposed to be? do you have a picture of your rooster I can see for comparison?

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I have to confess being somewhat computer stupid. I keep saying I will learn how to use a digital camera and post pics, but I have not as of yet done that. The Araucana Club of America's web-site has a list of standard of perfections, but for the blue, I don't understand the color of feet they have. Cathy Brunson's book, "Araucanas Rings on their Ears!" claims the feet color to be swarthy horn. I won't pretend to know what she is talking about. The only accepted color variety with blue is the ABA ( American Bantam Association). The standard breed doesn't recognize it.
The white is supposed to have yellow feet. I have a rumpless white hen but she doesn't have tufts. Other than that, she is perfect.
Most araucana varieties seem to require willow colored legs.
I think I would be better off with less varieties, but in more #s.
I'm going to have fun with this project as soon as I have my breeders separated. I will have a lot of breeding and studying to do, but I think it will be interesting.

 

[texascowboy1979]

That is so cool.. I have SO many breeding projects "BP" that Im gonna loose my mind... but Im happy.

BP one... "Get as many Tuft Chickens As Possible.. Considering I have only 2 Tufted Hens... it will be a while... but Im looking to find a tuft Male to experiment with and have him run wild with all my chickens...

BP two... "Chinese Ring neck Pheasants" They just started to lay eggs.

BP 3: Red Golden Phesants

BP 4: Lady Amherst Pheasants

BP 5: Tortosies

BP 6: Turkeys

BP 7: Java Peafowl

BP 8: This one is the Mad Scientist... I wanna cross my rooster with one of my pheasants...

 

[rhoda_bruce]

As to your last statement........there are some people that believe that the araucana may have first came into existance due to a crossbreed between pheasant/chicken.
I am only into chickens right now as far as poultry is concerned, but I plan on getting guineas in the spring.
I will be slaughtering several roosters within the next day or 2 and then I will begin to separate my araucanas from the RIRs.
You made me pull out my study equipment

I've never been much of a good student.