Hi all! I\'m new to the Araucana breed having been given a trio at the beginning of the year. I have raised 15 chicks this past spring (southern hemisphere) and am having trouble finding the standard to follow for type when selecting birds to keep. Here in Australia all green and or blue egg layers are called Araucana and the strain has become quite mixed with other fowl varieties but I believe my chickens to be very close to the Americana standard and I \'m thinking of trying to breed to these guidelines. Our Goverment has stopped importation of all fowl for about 50 years now and we are having trouble maintaining our breeds with the stock available. I\'m having trouble finding someone in Australia who can tell me what colours and type to breed. It\'s very frustrating.
I have a rooster which I believe to be a blue/wheaten or blue/red, two blue hens and what I think is a wheaten hen. They are all sibblings. The blues are dark slate grey with the same colour legs. They have small blackish red pea combs ,very dark brown eyes and a small beard. The rooster has really pretty golden hackles with tinges of red on him. All of them have a minimal tail compared to that of other breeds of fowl.The wheaten or pale red and cream coloured hen has greenish-tan legs,little muffs out of the ears, beard, bay eyes and a hooked beak. The chicks as I have learnt from breeding with blue are ALL colours! Most of the chicks are straight blue, some are a patterned red with pretty blue edged hackles, and the odd chick is black or blue/black with a couple of the chicks being splashed blue. I would like to know where to go from here. I particularly like the red/blue chicks and am wondering if they can be bred to each other? Would I keep the black and splash to breed blues or would I breed blue to blue? Are these true Americana colours or just a hosh posh mess? I have one chick with yellowish legs and some have very dark eyes. This is not acceptable traits to breed with are they?
Thank you in advance.
Aussie
