Three years ago, the officers of the Araucana Breeders & Exhibitors Club decided to make the variety Cuckoo a club project for APA approval of a 6th variety. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then – club officers have changed a bit – but I know many breeders are still working on this variety. A quick read of the article below published in ABEC’s one and only newsletter will shed some light on the reasons we chose cuckoo. Plus, it is REAL pretty on an Araucana! 🙂 I bring this subject up because I am wondering how many of you have cuckoo birds in your flocks? How many would like to work with cuckoo. If you already have blacks – cuckoo would be easy to branch out into. I periodically have cuckoo cockerels for sale in my started chick offerings – that would be the fastest and easiest way for someone to get started with this variety. Let me know if you would like to help with this project.
8 replies on “Why We Chose Cuckoo”
I would LOVE to have cuckoos, and that was my intent when I started with Araucanas, but then things happened. I ended up with Nancy U’s entire LF stock and I have no room for that variety. I do have blacks, so I guess it could happen in the future. I really wish blue was an approved variety. I did read of the lacing issue in Cathy Brunson’s book…how the APA would hold them to Blue Andalusian standards when that would be near impossible to reproduce in Araucanas.
I had some of Nancy’s whites years ago and I don’t think they have the cuckoo gene. But many Araucana whites do have it. Including mine. It really helps with the leg color since ‘Id yellow’ and the barring gene are linked. Blue is one of the common colors listed in the front of the Standard and yes, all blues, regardless of breed half to conform to the same standard of ‘Andalusian’ blue. That said – even the correct blue is still an AOV color in large fowl according to APA Standards. Blue is an approved variety in Bantams per the ABA Standard, as is Buff – but not in the large fowl.
If I scrap the mottled project (which I have considered), I could add cuckoos to my black pen. Not only do I love the cuckoo color but I would also like to do a crele project down the road. Is it cuckoo crossed with duckwing that produces crele?
It’s king of hard to totally scrap mottled since it is autosomal recessive and it can hide in a flock for years. Cuckoo, being a dominate sex-linked gene is a whole new ball game. Yes, the barring gene – over Black Breasted red – is Crele. 🙂
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I would love cuckoo in my flock! I currently have some blacks in the flock, so that would be a future dream of mine. I fear that it may stay a dream though, as I am in Canada, and it was very difficult to acquire the birds I have up here as it is. One day maybe!! For now, I will just have to live vicariously through your cuckoo flock, and others in the club. Your birds are so beautiful Ann!
wow! just wow! don’t tell my hubbie but I’d love to have a million of them running around! well done! did you succeed in getting 5 + breeders?