Author: Ann

I have been shipping hatching eggs for a couple of weeks now. Before I started shipping I had to establish fertility in each pen. Acceptable levels in each pen increased rapidly with each candling. I started shipping when I got to 90%. This is the first set of chicks to hatch from those fertility checks and are from a pen with a tufted Blue Paint cockerel over some non-tufted black pullets. I am so pleased with the first hatch from this cross. 4 eggs fertile, 4 chicks that hatched easily with no assistance. 2 double tufted, 2 non-tufted, all rumpless except the tufted black chick that has a knub.  Color ratio is exactly what I would expect from this cross. 1 Black, 1 Blue, 1 Paint, and 1 White. If you have any eggs in your incubator right now that are from me you have some chicks out of this pen. I wish you all luck. The first hatch is very promising.

This is ‘Peanutbutter’. Some of you have already seen her on my Facebook page. I just love this pullet! Mostly I love her Araucana ‘type’. And those balanced pinwheel tufts are to die for! But I am bragging. And, I shouldn’t be – her tufts are largely a gift of chance and this unusual color was not planned – it just happened. But I couldn’t be happier with her. I do believe she is one of a kind. My little ‘Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup’ pullet. 🙂

I am so sorry I have no posted here in a while – there has just been an awful lot going on – – and we won’t talk about the elephant in the room other than ‘Stay Home – Stay Safe’ as I hope you all are.

I am going to start shipping hatching eggs next week <knock on wood> The hens must have decided Easter was the magic time to really kick into gear. I have been hatching eggs all Winter but fertility was a bit hit and miss depending on who was just starting to lay and who was shutting down for a molt. Today’s eggs candled at 90% fertility and that is excellent in anyone’s book. First shipments go out next week and of course they will be shipped in the order the deposits were received. In closing here is a pretty pen of Black Araucana pullets (breeders) that are right at point of lay. I am looking forward to seeing what they produce. I promise to not take so long to write next time. Look for more from me soon and of course – lots of pix! Thank you for reading.

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.

We are all currently receiving a healthy dose of discounted Christmas offers. Included in this are a slew of hatchery emails promoting their chick sales from breeds that they think will sell well next year. I received one yesterday from McMurray Hatchery wherein they listed their top 6 breeds based on sales (and they have hundreds of breeds/varieties). Three of their top six ‘breeds’ are blue egg layers. These are McMurray’s ‘Whiting’ blue, and McMurray’s version of the Ameraucana and the Creme Legbar. All of these blue egg laying lines that they sell are poor imitations of the original blue egg layer – the Araucana.

These days it seems everyone wants to jump on the blue egg bandwagon, but most don’t want to put the time and the effort into working with the original – the Araucana. A few steps down from the hatcheries are a large group of private individuals selling either chicks or hatching eggs that they say (when they are at their most honest) are ‘entry level’ Araucana. I am not sure what that means but it sounds like they are selling a headache to me.

The original Araucana, and the same bird that set the poultry world on fire over 100 years ago, was the blue egg laying chickens of Dr. Reuben Bustos’ Araucana flock. He created them through years of selective breeding. Most new breeds are created from either existing land races, or by mixing other breeds together. Dr. Bustos combined the land race birds in his area to create a rumpless, blue egg laying, double tufted bird. That is the original Araucana and will always be the original Araucana.

At the top of this entry is a photo of the page from the National Geographic Magazine published in April 1927. This issue introduced the world to the Araucana Chicken. Pictured are two white females and a white male with Mahogany leakage in his wing. The true Araucana have not changed much from the original in the NatGeo rendition. They are a medium sized, blue egg laying bird with evenly balanced tufts, medium feather, wing carriage above the lower thigh, with a nice full breast, not too heavy in the hackle, and a nice slope to the back. The artist did a pretty good job recreating Dr. Bustos’ ‘Collonca de Artes’.

I have spent the last couple of hours trying to get hens that just want to lay an egg to stand for a photo. I give up. One more flat backed, squatty picture and I will scream. 🙁

I did get a good photo of my third place white bird overall from the Minden show. Below is Shine, he has just turned a year-old. His mother/grandmother, ‘Dove’ was Best of Breed. My white pullet was Reserve of Breed.

This was Shine’s first and only show. He is a breeder not a show bird. I just brought him to see how he looked in a show pen and share with other breeders that showed up. He is brassy, has a poor comb and his right tuft was damaged in the breeding pen this year so it’s only half there. Other than that he is a 6 pound mass of muscle and there is not much I don’t just love about him. His chicks are beautiful, correct, BIG, and it’s looking like the comb and brassiness issue is much improved in the next generation. Now if I could just breed a good solid black male Araucana that is built just like this white! 🙂 I would be SOOOO happy.

Below is ‘Boeing’, Reserve of Breed bantam Araucana at APA District Meet, Minden, Louisiana yesterday. This is not the best photo of her but it includes the whopping 1.8 oz egg she laid half way through the show. It caused a bit of a stir from passersby and it is a little larger than what she usually lays (about 1.5 oz). As one of the Silkie Breeders said “I can not believe the big egg came out of that tiny hen”. Boeing played Araucana goodwill ambassador and a number of people handled her and commented on her muscling (she weighs 26 oz). One of my Black bantam Araucana pullets was Best of Breed.

I just wanted to share this photo of Boeing and her egg since she is retired to the breeding pen next week. She has been laying for 3 months now and I need to get some chicks out of her. She is a Christmas day hatch, so she has a birthday coming up. 🙂

Thanks to Ben Porter for the great job on judging our birds.

The last couple of days have been hectic! Our APA District meet is in Minden, Louisiana tomorrow and I have 10 Araucana entered. Yesterday I washed my three large fowl white entries. What a job! I think I finally have my best hen, Dove, (and the others) clean. It is a bad thing to do but I have been getting her beat lately (Reserve of Breed every time out) because she just was not clean. No judge is going to use a dirty white bird over a good black bird sitting next to it. And as we all know black birds don’t show stains! My bad. 🙁 I just hope they all get a good look at the show tomorrow. I am also taking a Brown Red large fowl cockerel who is coming right out of the breeding pen (he will be bathed). 5 Araucana bantams (3 Blacks, 1 Birchen, and 1 Brown Red). With at least two other Araucana exhibitors attending we should have a really good representation of our breed at the District Meet. Wish us all luck. I will report results here later and include a few pix from the show.

On the subject of show birds I did something weird today. As most of you know I am accepting deposits for Spring hatching egg orders now. Those will begin shipping in April. After 15 years of breeding and exhibiting these birds I am ready for a bit of a slow down on the weekly settings of eggs (yes I do this year-round). Anyway – I had an odd desire to get started on that idea now. So what did I do? I just listed 3 large fowl Araucana hatching eggs on Ebay for shipment on Monday. These are straight out of current exhibition breeding pens! I may not be setting as many eggs this Monday as I usually do. 🙂 Take a look if you get a chance: SkyBlueEgg Araucana Egg Auction

Now it is back to washing birds and getting ready for the show. If anyone has a chance to get to Minden on Saturday look us up. We will have at least 3 ABEC club members present showing Araucana. You may even find a bird or two for sale!

Until next time . . . Thanks you for reading.

Ann