Araucana, ameraucana, ee ?

goatgal35 · Post by **goatgal35** » Sat May 14, 2016 6:27 am

Okay if I cross different colors Ameraucanas together the off spring are Easter eggers because I didn't keep the colors true? If I cross different colors in Araucana folks still call them Araucana? Can someone explain the difference? What would you call a light Sussex crossed with a speckled Sussex? Is it still a Sussex? FYI I don't cross my birds, I strive to breed true to the SOP. I'm just curious about all this and would like some opinions.

Jaye · Post by **Jaye** » Sat May 14, 2016 9:38 am

Good question. The way I understand it, if the parents both come from pure breed lines of the same breed, but are a different colour variety, the offspring would still be a pure breed, but not a recognized colour according to SOP. However, I too find it confusing when it comes to the Ameraucana breed: I followed a breed discussion thread on another forum for awhile, and it seemed that a lot of birds being evaluated were dismissed as EE, based solely on their colour; i.e., not one recognized by the Ameraucana breeders SOP. My thought is that if the lineage of both parents is pure Ameraucana, adhering to all other breed characteristics (eyes, legs, beak, body shape, etc.), and two recognized but different colour varieties are bred together, the offspring should still be Ameraucana, just not a recognized Ameraucana SOP colour variety. JMO.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Sat May 14, 2016 10:49 am

Ameraucanas suffer from a long line of confusion created by the hatcheries, selling anything that lays blue eggs as Ameraucanas, also it's a relatively new breed and fairly unstable, so once you loose the "standard color" the breed tends to fall apart in to the original parts of the total, and there is no recovering from that adventure.
Many heritage breeds, like Wyandottes for example, when cross different strains, presuming you have started with a good quality birds, will remain true to TYPE and the Variety can be recovered by breeding back to the original variety.
The debate doesn't really have a clear answer, because there are many levels of poultry keepers, and different levels of knowledge and involvement, so what one considers a Cardinal sin in poultry keeping, another may just blow off as way too much fuss.

G Williams · Post by **G Williams** » Sat May 14, 2016 11:33 am

I bought a quad of Game hens once. They looked like Games but 40% of the eggs hatched had 5 toes. Were they Games?
Light Sussex were an Improved version of the old Sussex, developed in the industrial age by crossing in other breeds (Dorking etc.)
The debate goes on and on like O.C. said.
The main problem I see with the definition of Standard Bred versus Pure Bred is that It takes little skill to keep a breed pure, where as it takes somewhat more skill to cross breed and get back to birds that will breed true.

Blue Heron Farm · Post by **Blue Heron Farm** » Sat May 14, 2016 4:48 pm

This is a great topic as I think a lot of people are confused about the difference between the 3 terms: True Ameraucana, Purebred Ameraucana, and EE or Olive egger. I have had a few issues with this lately when trying to buy hatching eggs to get new blood into my Ameraucana flock. I have True Blue Ameraucanas and I find it very hard to find anyone else who also does. I bought eggs from someone a few weeks ago that claimed to have pure Ameraucanas and when I got the eggs home most of them were green. I ended up just turning them into an omelet lol.

Here is the definition of each term as I understand them:

Pure and True Ameraucanas must have fluffy cheeks and lay only blue eggs. No green eggs. Green eggs are a result of crossing Ameraucanas with brown egg laying chickens. These chickens are called: Olive eggers or Easter eggers.

These 2 quotes are taken word for word straight from the SOP (American Standard of Perfection):
"Ameraucanas lay eggs with blue shells"
"A general purpose fowl for the production of meat and eggs, the latter having distinctive blue shell coloration"

True Ameraucanas must produce only one true colour in all of their offspring. This means that a pair of True Wheaten Ameraucana will only have wheaton chicks. Different colour chicks means they can be pure but not true. The only exception to this is the True Blue Ameraucana. Because of the genetics of the blue colour they produce Blue, Splash, and Black chicks.

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Sat May 14, 2016 5:53 pm

You might have missed an opportunity to get some good stock, LF Ameraucanas seldom lay the lovely blue eggs of bantams, also I find the storing hatching of eggs in correct temperature for hatching in cardboard boxes, seems to affect the color of the eggs somewhat.
Ameraucanass aren't judged on egg color, only confirmation to SOP
Not enough space on this forum to actually discuss color, I will leave that to Kathy

Blue Heron Farm · Post by **Blue Heron Farm** » Sat May 14, 2016 6:05 pm

Mine all lay beautiful pure blue eggs and I dont want to risk messing that up by breeding green egg laying EE's in.

Flat Rock Farm · Post by **Flat Rock Farm** » Sat May 14, 2016 8:45 pm

Aracauna's are different, still lay a nice blue egg but they are rumpless and either have ear feather tufts or clean faced. :wink:

G Williams · Post by **G Williams** » Sat May 14, 2016 10:00 pm

There was a story going around about an Ameraucana laying a brown egg right in front of a Judge. It was promptly disqualified.

goatgal35 · Post by **goatgal35** » Sun May 15, 2016 7:38 am

Flat Rock Farm wrote:QR_BBPOST Aracauna's are different, still lay a nice blue egg but they are rumpless and either have ear feather tufts or clean faced. :wink:

I realize the difference between the breeds. My questions is why when the colors(variety) of Ameraucana are mixed it becomes and Easter egger according to some people, but when we mix the colors of Arauana it is still an Araucana. Why?