When Does An EE Cease to be AN EE?

[Redcatcher]

Since EE's can lay "pink" eggs (or anything other than green or blue) and/or be non- bearded, at what point can they be outcrossed so that they are no longer EEs?

Edit: typo

 

[Illia]

Once they have single combs and/or lay brown/pink eggs, having few or no other EE traits, they're not EE's anymore but just brown egg laying mutts. Same goes for white eggs.

When they have slate legs, beard/muffs, a true breeding and recognized color, and white skin - they're Ameraucanas instead.

 

[hinkjc]

When they breed true in all aspects of the breed you want to call them.

 

[draye]

Quote:
Amen.

 

[Meara]

I've always thought that EEs were pretty much defined by laying colored (neither brown or white) eggs. But how do you define a mutt?

 

[draye]

Pretty much a crossbred chicken is what they mean by mutt. Mutt is a term that is usually reserved for a dog, but people on here like to throw it around.
An Easter Egger is the fore runner of the Araucana and Ameraucana breeds, but the were not breed to be a specific color, or have certain leg color and so on as to have a standard for them. They lay all color eggs because of the way that people were mixing them with about every breed out there. Most have retained their Quechua type shape, not all, but most, and the blue egg gene has mixed with the brown coloring dye found in the brown egg layers and it tints the blue egg green (various shades), and sometinmee they lose the blue egg gene altogether and will lay brown eggs.

 

[Redcatcher]

Quote:
I thought the point of having EEs is that you get a variety of different colored eggs. Some hatcheries claimed that some would lay yellow, lavender or pink tinted eggs. like Easter eggs but of course they are just all shades of green, blue and brown. But the point was that you got a variety.

 

[Redcatcher]

Cross bred chickens were always called dunghills. Though dunhills can refer to a specific colonial chicken, anything crossbred was/is also called a dunghill.

 

[cashdl]

I tend to disagree (in the most respectful way possible) with the comment that the easter egger was the fore runner of the araucana and the ameraucana. The Collonca which was a rumpless clean faced blue egg laying chicken and the Quetro was a tailed tufted brown egg laying chicken were both used to produce the araucana chicken. The Quechua was used to produce the ameraucana. The easter egger is a mixed breed chicken that may or may not lay a blue egg, can lay a pink, tan or white egg. The araucana and the ameraucana were each bred from specific chickens to achieve their particular traits that they each have today. Back in the early 1900's when the araucana was introduced to the public, it was described as a rumpless tufted blue egg laying chicken from Chile. Blue eggs quickly became sought after.

"Since the blue egg gene is a dominant gene and responding to a general demand, commercial hatcheries were easily able to outcross the blue egg laying Araucana with everything else and sell their progeny as “Araucanas”, when they were anything but. We can’t really blame the hatchery for this practice, since at the time there was no officially recognized Standard in North America for the Araucana. Unfortunately this practice is still being used today by many hatcheries, which in my opinion shows a lack of ethics since the Araucana standard has been officially recognized by both the APA & ABA for years."

The above quote is from Araucana the Main Roost website. It has a really nice article about how we arrived at the araucana and ameraucana today.

Make no mistake the Easter Egger is a mixed breed chicken that may lay blue or green eggs. It is a lovely chicken. I have several and a couple lay tan eggs the rest lay nice blue eggs. They are not bred to any standard other than colored eggs. They come in lots of colors ( the chickens) shapes and sizes. Of the 8 I have, 3 are large hens, 4 are medium size, and 1 is fairly small. 1 is black, 4 are reddish, and 3 are gold colored.

I recommend that people read up on the history of the araucana, ameraucana and the easter egger. One good website is members.shaw.ca/Araucana/EArauHistory.htm. I also have quite a few links to araucana history on my website.

When the statement is made that the easter egger is the ancester of the araucana and the ameraucana it dimenishes all the hardwork that went into what those two breeds are today. I believe it is the other way around. Due to the popularity of the blue egg gene and its dominance the easter egger came about. That is just my belief based on what I have read. I am sure others will dispute me.

I am not writing this to start an argument.

Lanae

 

[Medicine Man]

Quote:
The APA-Ameraucana did come from the World's Fair Quechua, which was called Ameraucana decades earlier and is the stock that the hatcheries still have and sell as "Ameraucana".

You are correct that they have nothing to do with Araucanas.

The confusion, and the resulting disrespect to the Quechua, originates from the blue egg gene's dominance and thus all the irresponsible breeding and producing mutts called "Easter Eggers". But the APA-Standard Ameraucana is truly the more mutted-up version of the World's Fair Quechua, having been mixed with various things and then bred true for color and type (for example, Silver Leghorns used to make Silver Ameraucanas). This is why I'm turned off by North American Araucanas too...they are no longer the pure and significant strains originally found in Chile.

The issue has become so convoluted that ignorance now dominates BYC about which came first, the EE or the Ameraucana, and nobody is even willing to acknowledge the World's Fair Quechua, which preceded the Ameraucana and is what most hatchery EEs still are.