What Do We Have Here?

[Lady of McCamley]

I agree in the new photos...Biscuit and Roman are your EE's and Polly and Mabel are your Partridge Rocks.

No signs of a roo in any of those photos....and the EE color pattern appears to be the typical female pattern.

And no, you probably hadn't misheard the hatchery say Ameraucana. Many hatcheries erroneously label their Easter Eggers as Ameraucana (some deceptively).

If you just want pretty eggs, and pretty birds, that won't matter much, especially if you paid pretty much the same price for each chick.

However it is confusing and misguiding. True Ameraucanas are standardized to 8 distinct colors and body style (beard/muff and slate legs with tail in America). Further pure breed Ameraucanas carry 2 genes of the highly coveted blue egg shell meaning that you will always produce a blue layer when you breed 2 of those together.

Easter Eggers are an Ameraucana mix...usually an Ameraucana as one parent and any other breed as the other. (Although more and more people/hatcheries are breeding EE's and calling them EE's). With the Ameraucana/any other hen mix, it means that the offspring get only 1 blue shell gene. Usually 100% of the EE chicks will lay a shade of blue or green (if brown layer parent was used), but you can also get pink or white.
If you breed an EE forward to another breed, it produces 50/50 chance of blue layers. You can quickly breed out the blue shell gene.

The whole EE called Ameraucana issue confuses and dilutes an expensive pure breed....which was the original purpose of the EE in the development of the blue layer lines in America (which descended from the Araucanas brought in from South America....literally American Araucana....or Ameraucana.)...to deceive unwary buyers into thinking they had true Ameraucanas (rare and expensive) when actually they had a diluted (mixed) product (offspring).

Just so you know for future purchases.

As for your flock, they look lovely. Hopefully all pullets for you.
LofMc

 

[TinyBirds]

Biscuit and Roman are your EEs, Polly and Mabel are your partridge Rocks.

Roman happens to have partridge-ish patterning as some EEs do which is probably what's causing the confusion. But, look closely at the chest and note that the Rocks have consistent patterning all around while Roman's changes a bit there.

Agree! The easter eggers Biscuit and Roman have fluffy cheek feathers and will have pea combs if you look close, and the partridge rocks Polly and Mabel will have straight combs. In the first photo there is a silver laced wyandotte that looks mostly black but will get more white later. Far left is the sex link. Feed stores and most people locally will call easter eggers Ameraucanas. The easter eggers will give more eggs but wont be a standardized color of feathers for putting in chicken shows. Also thet can lay brown eggs sometimes too, rather than blue or green. Most would lay blue or green though.

 

[debid]

...
I thought the woman said they were Ameraucana's but I could have misunderstood. It was our first time at a hatchery and it was a bit overwhelming. We went to get 3 maybe 4 and left with 8, lol.

You've only just begun and are already learning about chicken math!

I'm in middle TN... Can I ask which hatchery you visited?

 

[coopdeblair]

We didn't pay extra for the EE's. They were all basically the same price with maybe a 25 cent difference in some.
So far they have been nothing but fun and I love how all of them have different personalities. We're already looking at what we want next, lol.