Silver Ameraucanas

[Guest]

Here are some of my Silver Ameraucanas

Could you guys critique these and tell me what you think?

Do they need improvement?

Thanks so much



A Picture showing more of the breast

The rooster doesn\'t have any brassiness or color in his saddle, in the picture ( i think it may be poo)

[Guest]

could anyone tell me if they are good quality/have flaws or have correct feather coloring or not? Please  

[Mike Gilbert]

Cindy, I hope you do realize that yesterday was Easter, and many of us were celebrating with family.  I will only comment on the color flaws and let others comment on type.  The obvious flaw in the females is the feather shafting.   In the male, is he dirty in the saddle area, or is he brassy?  He should be silvery white and black only, without the brownish cast.   He also needs more white in the wing bows.

[Guest]

I do realize it was Easter, I didn\'t mean for it to sound that way. I celebrate Easter as well.

He isn\'t brassy in that area, he is dirty. I need to get a better photo of him from the side to show better wing bows as he has more white than it shows.  Thanks for your insight  

I am new to this..can you explain what feather shafting is in the females please

[John]

Cindy,
Search this forum for \"shafting\" to get more on the subject, but here are a few links that touch on it...

http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=252

Quote:
stippling and shafting

They are both defined in the APA Standard, under GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS, on page 11.
Stippling (not the same as striping which is different than stripping) is the contrasting colors of tiny dots or speckles on a feather.
Shafting is when the shaft of the feather is a different color than the surface color of the feather.
With silver females we want stippling, but not shafting.

http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=84
http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=87
Shafting is a common problem with silvers.  Overall your silvers look average.  Leg color, eye color and type look good to me.  The combs could be better and the size is probably on the small side as are most LF silvers.  I also see a little off color in the saddle and hackle of the male.

[Guest]

Thanks very much for the input, its is a starting off point for me to work with. I am totally open to constructive criticism. That is how one learns.

[Jean]

The shafting is very hard to eliminate.  I see silver dutch pictures with it too.  

Some of my first cross of silver to black even had shafting.......

You might want to check their weights also.

[Guest]

Thanks Jean, makes me feel a little better about them..I do need to weigh them. The rooster is larger than most my other color Ameraucanas, 1 hen is more average looking and one is definately small.

[Jean]

I have been hatching my third generation of the silver projects I have been working on and some of them must have a dwarf gene or they definately have some old lingering  bantam blood.