What would you call this color?

[pkarkos]

Hello!
I have an Ameraucana rooster that I am interested in showing or breeding show stock, but I do not know what to call his coloring. He is about four or five years old so he may be too old to show and he also has a bent toe. Even if he is not show quality I am still interested in knowing what to call his color. According to the Ameraucana Breeders Club and the American Standard of Perfection, there are 8 recognized colors; black, blue, blue wheaten, brown red, buff, silver, wheaten, and white.

 

[The Moonshiner]

He isn't an approved color for the ameraucana breed.
That alone makes him not an ameraucana.
He is a mixed color/pattern and that means he will not breed true to his pattern.
He can make some interesting offspring but he nor they will be show stock or show quality.

 

[drumstick diva]

agree

 

[8 Chicks 1967]

Yep I have a cockerel a lot like him. Easter Egger

 

[OhZark Biddies]

He isn't an approved color for the ameraucana breed.
That alone makes him not an ameraucana.

I get what you're saying here, but just wanted to ask if this is technically true, just for clarification.

Let's say I had a mixed flock of 'Red-Brown', 'Buff', 'Wheaten', and 'Blue' ameraucanas, and I let them all cross for a few generations, I would expect to see, many "unapproved" color varieties develop in this flock.

But wouldn't they all still be considered ameraucanas? But simply not standard colored ameraucanas?

 

[The Moonshiner]

I would agree with you completely on that.
I mix color breed leghorns and imo two leghorns bred together still produce leghorns. Just not approved colors.
I can mix colors then breed them back to producing accepted colors. So with some breeders idea I can take two leghorns cross them and produce mix breed offspring but then cross mix breeds and produce true leghorns. Or even have true leghorns and mixed birds in the same hatch.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Ameraucana are a bit different since they have the Easter egger as a scape goat.
Ameraucana breeders can label all culls as EEs and sell them like they're a breed.
They work the same as my leghorn crosses. Cross two ameraucana and produce EEs then breed EEs and produce ameraucana again.
Seems odd.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Even if he is not show quality I am still interested in knowing what to call his color.

He has a little bit of everything! Not sure what to call his color, maybe "Jacob's Coat"

 

[Frazzemrat1]

I get what you're saying here, but just wanted to ask if this is technically true, just for clarification.

Let's say I had a mixed flock of 'Red-Brown', 'Buff', 'Wheaten', and 'Blue' ameraucanas, and I let them all cross for a few generations, I would expect to see, many "unapproved" color varieties develop in this flock.

But wouldn't they all still be considered ameraucanas? But simply not standard colored ameraucanas?

Personally, I'd call them mixed Ameraucana. When it was questioned what they were mixed with, I'd answer mixed colors. It would be like mixing colors on a Siamese cat. It will still be a Siamese, but you couldn't show it because it wouldn't follow the breed standard. Just the same, you couldn't breed it call it a full Siamese, as people would assume it was something they could register to the breed standard.

But that's why when you buy a Siamese cat, its always a 'seal, or blue, or chocolate, or flame point Siamese. Same with Ameraucana. Its always a lavender (I know, still in the works), or wheaton, or black etc.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Mixed ameraucana does sound like an ameraucana mix.
I'd call it what it is... A color crossed ameraucana.

 

[Kusanar]

I would agree with you completely on that.
I mix color breed leghorns and imo two leghorns bred together still produce leghorns. Just not approved colors.
I can mix colors then breed them back to producing accepted colors. So with some breeders idea I can take two leghorns cross them and produce mix breed offspring but then cross mix breeds and produce true leghorns. Or even have true leghorns and mixed birds in the same hatch.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Ameraucana are a bit different since they have the Easter egger as a scape goat.
Ameraucana breeders can label all culls as EEs and sell them like they're a breed.
They work the same as my leghorn crosses. Cross two ameraucana and produce EEs then breed EEs and produce ameraucana again.
Seems odd.

The problem is that most registries follow bloodlines, if both parents are pure, then the child is pure, and once mixed, they can never be pure or registered again. Chickens don't work that way, you can bring in another breed to improve a specific characteristic, then over the next few generations select back to the original breed standard, and lo and behold, you suddenly have "pure" chickens again. It doesn't matter that 4 generations back their parents were mixed breed because chickens don't follow parentage. In fact, it is POSSIBLE but not PROBABLE to have 2 birds that were hatched from the same parents and they can show as 2 different breeds, actually, I don't know if you can show EE, but if so, then you could easily show 50% of your hatch of "pure" birds as ameracana and the other 50% as EE due to some of them not matching the breed standard for ameracana.