Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I bred my black rooster to my splash hen again. The result was 3 blue males that look like they will have combs that are too big, similar looking to the males that hatched from this cross last year. One has a head I don't like. What I really wanted from the splash was pullets. She is a nice looking hen that lays large blue eggs. I will try her with a different rooster next year.

I bred my smaller medium blue rooster from last year to my medium-sized dark blue hen (looks black). The result was 3 blue males - 1 dark blue (looks black) and 2 medium blue. 2 medium blue females (I think) that have nice lacing. All these chicks are smaller and have cute faces.
Here are the two youngest males. They are 11 weeks old.
I kept the large blue rooster with the oversized comb from last year (black x splash) but decided not to use him for breeding. He's not bad looking, but besides the big comb he has developed an attitude I don't like.

The chicks from BC - 8 from one rooster and 4 from another rooster. 1 black male for sure from the first rooster and 1 blue male for sure from the second rooster. I thought there were 3 or 4 males in with the pullets, but I am not sure. There is no crowing in that pen and no red combs, and no fighting. They are 15 weeks old. The pen they are in gets mostly morning light. The pen with the roosters gets some light all day so they may have matured faster. The ones from the first rooster don't have very thick muffs and there is one who has light colored feathers above its eyes. Hmm. The ones from the second rooster have thicker muffs, but are smaller birds. White in the wings is not obvious any more. I will have to catch them and have a look to see if it is still there.

What's the bird at the very bottom of pic that you can just see eyeballs and a barred tail?

Those guys are cute!

The two light colored ones are Basque (also known as Euskal Oiloa) roosters from the same hatch.

Here's one of the females with the lacing. I used a flash so she looks brown, but she is not. She is a pretty medium blue. Sunlight changes the color of blues ones too.
Here's a picture of some of the boys. I see in the Ameraucana standard that their eyes are supposed to be "expressive". What does this mean? The Ameraucanas I got from BC have smaller eyes than my "cute" ones. I prefer the bigger eyes. They look really cute when they have a full muff.

The eyes on the Ameraucana are largish, and "alert" the difference is fairly obvious when they are beside other LF birds.

Thanks OC. The ones from BC with the smaller eyes look kind of startled.

Well, my first hatch chicks are 20 weeks old. I am shocked and happy to say that I have 13 Ameraucana pullets and 5 Ameraucana cockerels. The most pullets I've ever hatched. The majority of them came from the eggs I bought from BC. The cockerels are not real impressive but I like a lot of the pullets. They went through an ugly stage though.

These are the boys. The black one and the blue one on the bottom left came from BC. The other 3 are from my splash hen and black rooster. Here are some of the girls.