Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hello PTO. I have a conundrum, that is expected apparently when dealing with getting "pure Ameraucana" vs an easter egger/cross/mix. The breeder in question is a member of the forum, and therefore I will keep it anonymous unless that person decides to chime in and make it public.

Firstly I ordered 9 Ameraucana and 9 Wynadotte, putting that order in on PayPal, its there in black and white. When the seller shipped the eggs, I was told he/she made a mistake and sent 12 Serama instead of the 9 Wynadotte. We came to a compromise that if I had a failed hatch I would pay for the shipping of the Wynadotte eggs, but the price of the eggs since it was his/her fault would be free. (I think I was more than fair?- Esp since the Serama, cute as they are, are an issue to me as we get so cold up here..etc)

Hatch day rolls around, and I text the person saying "My eggs are hatching, woopie~!" To I get the reply "oh your easter eggers are hatching?!?" Thats the first and only time I had serious doubt that we had an issue. I texted back saying "What?!"....(and conversation ensued about the differences of the breeds and that what I had were pure)(and before that point I should have noticed the egg shell color, but didnt because I didnt really know!)

Up till then this person was nothing but nice, caring, answering questions, we worked through "paypal issues" and everything else. I must give credit where it is due. If you are reading this, you know I am being truthful. I was nothing but pleased with the kindness and open communication throughout the payment of the eggs, shipping of the eggs, incubation of the eggs, and hatching of the eggs from the seller.

BUT.

I do not believe these chicks, cute as they are, are the breed I ordered. I brought up the issue to the seller, who fully believes that the birds are "TRUE Ameraucana" and NOT easter eggers, or crosses. I could take these birds to a chicken show, and they would pass as Ameraucana.

An ameraucana must have (without exception):
A pea comb
Muffs and beard
Slate or black legs (black is acceptable on black birds. Slate on every other colour)
One of the recognized apa colours-blue, black, wheaten, blue wheaten, white, um... Brown red..
And they must lay some sort of blue egg

An ameraucana must NOT have:
Wattles
Single comb, rose comb or a split pea/single comb
Green, yellow, willow or white legs
They do not lay pink eggs, green eggs or brown eggs or purple eggs or white eggs. Only shades of blue.

There are sites apon sites that list traits and what to look for, and also the issue of breeders honestly not knowing that they have EEs vs True Ameracauna. The breeder would not listen to me, and insisted they are TRUE Ameracauna.

The eggs were 50/50 shades of light blue, cream/"rose", and almost white. I found only half of the eggs, as I threw them out. Pictures to follow.
Legs-Only 1 chick has black/grey legs. One has semi grey, and the rest are yellow/cream legs.

Judging by "leg color only" I only have maybe 1 or 2 Ameraucana. And by egg color, 50% chance, as half were cream/rose/white the other 4-5 were indeed light blue. They are too young for comb/waddle/muffs n beards identifying traits? (or are they?)

Please, if members can, can you help identify my fluffy bums.

The other two chick pics are having HTTP errors everytime I try to upload them. Trying to trouble shoot them now...

Well they do appear to have beards and muffs, hard to tell at this age though. The green willow legs some times pop up but these chicks seem to have that plus yellow legs. I doubt they are pure.Even their down colour is not correct. Sorry but on the bright side easter eggers are often great layers and come in many beautiful colours.

https://pto-forum.s3.amazonaws.com/77_7 ... 4281152d66
Here is a link to an ameraucana egg shell colour chart. My 2 pure girls both lay blue eggs but one is "less blue" than the other.
Hope this helps.

Sometimes, what looks like yellow or greenish legs at hatch, will 'correct' as they grow out... yellow will fade to white, and melanin will creep down the legs and feet to turn them gray...but at least one of the chicks has a rose comb and very orange legs. The orange may fade to yellow, but will not likely become white. With that chick, you might have got one of the wyandottes you were looking for, but I doubt it...EEs will throw rose combs too. On the other hand, if the eggs that weren't blue, also weren't tiny, they weren't Serama. I think you got a box of chocolates and are going to have to grow them out before you can tell what they are :/

This is probably not going to make you feel any better, but the Ameraucana confusion continues, mainly because people do not educate themselves on their chosen breed before they start selling hatching eggs.
Like Kenya, I have been raising Ameraucanas for a long time, it's not an easy breed, still pretty young and unstable, but anybody using Ameraucana and Easter egger in one breath is not a good source of hatching eggs.
The shade of blue eggs wouldn't really be important as long as they are more or less blue.
Your beige eggs would be the Wyandottes I presume?
Now, take a deep breath, enjoy your fluffy buts, wait 4 weeks, take more pictures and we will tell you all about it :)

Sorry, there is some confusion. I asked for Wynadotte and Ameracana.

He never shipped Wynadotte, instead he did Serama. There is no question about the Serama. They are 1/4th the size of the chicks in question.

I asked for Wynadotte and Ameracauna and got Serama (micro mini chickens-hard to mistake) and these 7 chicks are the ones in question, as to breed, are they EEs or Ameracauna.

So do you know what breed of ameraucana you ordered? Because from these photos whatever they are they are not on a pure e locus background whuch makes me suspect that they are in fact eastr eggers.

Well, anything that came from a pink egg is NOT an Ameraucana, and for that matter, assuming there was an Ameraucana (or EE) rooster fertilizing those beige eggs, the chicks that hatch from them are only 50% likely to be Easter eggers, and will lay shades of green, and the other 50% will just be mixed breed chickens that will lay beige eggs. It's too early to tell if any of the chicks from blue eggs are Easter eggers or Ameraucanas, but honestly I think you got boned.

He says he has a pure rooster on pure hens in a pen with easter eggers. But he could say anything, the pure rooster could be a EE and he doesnt know, and the hens are just laying blue eggs, but are EEs as well, such as yellow legs, wrong color of feathers, etc...

He advertises PURE 100% AMERACAUNA, I didnt order EEs...and to top things off, they look to be standards, not bantams. I did not order any specific COLOR of Ameracauna, just bantam.

The EGG colors were 4-5 light blue, the rest were mostly cream/white and one was more of a slight pink color. I know Ameracauna cant come from anything other than the blue. Just by looking at the LEGS and BEAKS can say that they are most likely EEs, no? I dont know, I am asking for yalls opinion and stuff since I am new to the breed, etc.

I will quote from text messages

"I dont believe I sent any easter Eggers to you. They should have been Ameracauna. But my blue Ameraucana rooster breeding my buff Ameracauna hen will create a easter Egger..still an Ameraucana. It is only based on plumage color..."

He said that to me, is that correct if you have a blue rooster mated to a buff, it would make a Easter Egger that would be still an Ameraucana...he thinks that EEs just means some color variety of an Ameraucana...not that he understands them to be diffrent breeds all together.