Wheaten large fowl are a work in progress. Thanks Jordan for your willingness to help. I hope you will like Ameraucanas better than Wyndottes.
Some wheatens have a problem with feather shanks and stubs. Shank color of some don\'t change to be the required slate. Some red is beginning to show up in the male\'s breast, but the black stripping in the hackles is decreasing. Make sure the females have adequate black in their tail and the black on the underside of the neck on the males isn\'t broken by the red/orange. I\'ve been told these two things lead to the problem of red in their breast. Some may develop crooked toes or a lazy tail (they hold it to one side like a wry tail, then flip it over to the other side. Some male\'s tail is too long which may be part of the cause of the lazy tail. The egg color of wheatens usually fades to white too quickly (much sooner than blacks or blues). Occassionally a chick will be cleaned faced (no muffs or beard). Some wheatens are beginning to have problems with white in their earlobes. Some females are too dark caused by the wild-e-gene (Mike wil have to explain). Some occassionaly will be too small. The wheaten LF were bred up from bantams, so there are still some small genes holding on to some of them.
Wheatens are a real challenge to produce one capable of winning the show. Last year we had the best blue wheaten pullet that has ever been raised on our place. Her picture is on the North Central Dist. Meet, National Meet-Great Falls, Montana and the South-Central District Meet all are on page six topics, at this time.
I hope I didn\'t disencourage anyone who has a desire to breed show quality wheaten Ameraucanas from trying. They are an experience like no other variety to raise. The chicks of wheaten, blue wheaten and splash wheaten are all the same color at hatching. They can be identified by variety within two weeks of age. The wheaten chicks will have black, the blue wheaten will have blue and the splash wheaten will have white on their wing primaries. Wheatens are sex-linked, so with time (about 4 weeks) the females will develop the creamy wheaten color (if they are correct and don\'t have the wild-e-gene) and the males will develop their color for their variety. Their color changes several times from a chick to an adult ready to show. The chicks start out with an off white shank and turn slate at about 3 months of age-so one has to be patient when breeding the Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas. Several breeders agreed a few years ago to breed splash wheatens to get them a recognized variety. It takes 5 breeders, 5 years of breeding, show 50 head at a designated show, have a recommendation from the judge, a lot of paper work, and a yes vote by the APA to get a variety recognized.
