Please help evaluate my daughter\'s wheatens - can she work with these?

[Guest]

We ordered chicks from John this spring so my 7-year-old could get started in junior showing.  Between a bad hatch and misc. losses, we now only have 4 birds to start out her bantam wheaten/blue wheaten flock, 2 cockerels and 2 pullets.  I\'ve posted 2 pics of each below.  Cockerel #1 is wheaten, has a nice tail carriage (I think), but no beard or muffs.  Cockerel #2 is blue wheaten, has facial furnishings, but I don\'t like the way he carries himself.  Which should she keep, or should she not keep either and try to find another \"foundation cock\"?  My daughter\'s pretty young and not interested in \"big time\" showing, but she\'d like to produce the nicest birds she can.  I know the birds are young, but she will need to rehome whichever we aren\'t keeping at the fair in early August.  

Pullet #1 is quite a bit lighter than #2.

Many thanks for whatever critique you can make!

[Mike Gilbert]

The blue wheaten will shape up when he gets older.   These are too young for a final evaluation, but it looks to me like you have a good breeding trio.    You might want to hang onto the beardless wheaten male as a backup just in case the blue wheaten is not fertile.   The wheaten male would also be useful to test mate your two females to see if they are pure (homozygous)  for the beard and muffs gene.  If they are pure all their chicks will have muffs, even though their sire is beardless.

[Guest]

Thanks Mike, I\'m glad to hear my daughter can work with these.  I admit to being biased against the blue wheaten because he has that low tail carriage.  The first time I saw true Ameraucanas down here I thought they were really unattractive because they had that low tail carriage (in fact, they were black and I thought they looked like buzzards).  On the ABC home page the photos would indicate that the better quality birds carry their tails a bit higher.  Does the wheaten cock show a better body type, or not necessarily?  

Thanks,
Lynne

[Mike Gilbert]

Yes, right now the wheaten has the better stance.   It may  be that the wheaten male is dominant, and the low tail carriage of the blue wheaten is a sign of submission.   Why don\'t you try penning the wheaten away from the others (out of sight) for a few weeks and see if that doesn\'t make a difference?

[Guest]

You\'re right, the wheaten is definitely the dominant of the two.  I\'ll give it a try.