The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Breeding

Breeder selling to hatchery?

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Susan Mouw:
It has just been brought to my attention that there is a well-known breeder selling his pure-bred Ameraucanas to Cackle Hatchery. Cackle Hatchery is breeding that pure-bred stock and selling them as Ameraucanas.

The argument in byc is that this will, somehow, better the breed and help eliminate the confusion over EE vs Ameraucana.

My fear is that, within a few generations, this will cause a Rhode Island Red type split in the breed and we will have "hatchery quality" and "breeder quality", with few discernible similarities between the two.  It is unlikely that Cackle Hatchery will do the selective breeding and culling that a breeder would do.

Maybe I'm being too "doomsday"...what do others think?

Dan Pitts:
I'm involved in the BYC discussion, but don't know enough to comment here. I'm really curious to see the responses

Susan Mouw:
Dan - I'd like to hear your take on it. :)

Dan Pitts:

--- Quote from: Susan Mouw on February 10, 2016, 09:12:10 AM ---Dan - I'd like to hear your take on it. :)

--- End quote ---
Ok, but bear in mind this comes from someone that only in the last year has gotten breeder quality birds.
As I said on BYC, I compare it to my first experience with BCM. Marans are so popular, and the gene pools have gotten so diluted by hatcheries and greedy "breeders", that bad birds are not easily picked out by an amateur. I can look at an orange EE and a Black AM and see the obvious difference in those birds. Right now, someone wanting to buy Ameraucanas could put Ameraucanas into a search engine, and most of the returns would either be relatively well bred AMs, or EEs that were misrepresented. Obvious difference between those two birds.
When I put black copper marans into a search engine, I saw dark eggs and black birds with copper necks, so I found a "breeder" two hours from me that had them for sale. I actually drove to get them to avoid losing them in shipping. I didn't know anything about yellow skin, Penedesenca combs, side sprigs, white feathers, straw hackles, or any of the other egregious faults that initial flock had. The breeder had dark eggs and black chickens.
I fear that is what will happen with the AMs. Most people want AMs for blue eggs, and those people buying from hatcheries, then further diluting that bloodline by not breeding them correctly, are going to do the same thing to the AMs that has been done to the BCM.
I understand that hatcheries could pick up some birds any time they wanted to, then breed and sell those birds. It just surprised me who was promoting it...

Kelsey Marinelli:
As you know I am new to Ameraucana breeding however I am familiar with K9's and I can tell you that a breeder of show quality dogs would never sell to a puppy mill.

Its like any commercial business where quantity typically trumps quality over time and each bird will be used to produce my most profit regardless of conditon/standard/temperment etc.

I was turned onto the breed mostly due to the fact that I saw so many misrepresentations by hatcheries and many people confused about the diffrence between EE's and Ameraucana's. Because of this problem it was clear that I needed to reach out to a breeder. I may have paid more but I got the birds I wanted.

I guess my point is * I think access to commercial "pure breed" ameraucanas will hurt breeders in two ways. One is the diffrence between pet/backyard quality and pure selectivley bred birds will have less importance to general poultry hobbiest than the price. and two commercially bred birds may not live up to the hype of the breed and it may turn people away from them altogether.

I hope that is not too negative of a response. It does mean it may take more work in promoting the quality of birds bred to improve the breed. 

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