Attention Breeders: let me first say that this post is NOT about pointing fingers; it is about improving our breed.
I recently unofficially polled 4 different forums where the posters would know something about our breed. My question was: What is the number one/first thing you think of when you hear Ameraucana? 2 sites allowed for actual voting and the 3 choices I gave were beards & muffs, blue eggs, rarety. On the other 2 sites I just asked for a response to the question: What is the first identifying trait you think of when you think of Ameraucanas? I threw out responses where more than one item was given and the results are that out of 32 votes, 21 were for BLUE EGGS = 66%. 3 were for Muffs & Beards = 9%
What does it mean? 66% of your business is people coming to you for poultry that lay blue eggs. I believe breeders who maintain breeding stock that do not have blue (blue-tinted) eggs are hurting all of us because if 66% of our total business is disappointed they are going to another breed and we’ll have poultry that’s limited to the few stalwart show people. (This does not pertain to developing but to established varieties).
