The Araucanas - Grown up!

So, it has been quite a while since I've shown you how my Araucanas have turned out. First you saw the chicks, then you saw the scruffy'uns, then a sampler of last month. . . Here's my Araucanas now.

First, a little round of the boys. I have culled down dramatically from 31 Araucanas to 16, with the population drop being in boys. I'm only keeping one of each color, and of each color I prefer to work with. For example - I had a lot of blue and black boys, but I'm not working with blue or black, because they all had too much duckwing/yellow leaking in their feathers. If I were to work with those colors, they'd be pure. So, I have these guys left:

Here's Marango. He's a Lemon Blue, which is basically a cross of duckwing and blue to the point of changing the patterning around to get this. It is gorgeous, and the female version of it looks simply like a blue hen, but with a silvery white necklace.





Here's my Blue Cuckoo cockerel who only goes by the temporary nickname of "Cookies and Cream." He's a barred blue Araucana who needs some cleaning up. As you can see, he's not exactly barred, due to having ducking alleles still in him, which dilutes the barring. So, I'll be working on cleaning that up so his offspring are completely barred.





This is Canis. He's a Splash cockerel, and has the absolute best pair of tufts out of all the 31 Araucanas we received. He really is a looker, too!






Now, we go onto the girls. The pullets. These girls vary also in color, but there's at least one of each that matches a color to my pick of the boys.

This is Josephine, actually, the only one who doesn't have a cockerel with a matching color. She's a Black Copper Araucana, a project color, wich if she were actually a Marans, would have what is called "mossiness." Otherwise, she's got gorgeous tufts and markings as well as a wonderful body!





This is Freyja. She's the female version of Canis. She's a splash, but without tufts (which is a good thing) and also the absolute smallest of our Araucanas!



Size comparison next to a Wyandotte.



Next up is an example of a Lemon Blue female - As stated, they're a typical blue but with a duckwing-type "necklace."



Another example, although this girl won't be bred as a Lemon Blue. I'm going for a goal with this color, and she's got too much brown and duckwing/BBR showing through.



Here's the female version of my Blue Cuckoo / Barred Araucana. This girl actually seems to be properly colored, but also has a leaking unwanted gene. I will still breed her though to get a normal Barred bird, not blue barred, so I can really see what I'm working with here.




And, last but certainly not least! The eggs! This, pictured below, is a collection of the first 3 eggs laid of each color of Araucana. They're organized in up-down columns.



From left to right: Lemon Blue 1, Black, Blue Cuckoo, Black Copper, Lemon Blue 2, Silver Duckwing.

As you can see, the eggs on the far left are quite green, almost an odd golden brown color. The hen that laid those will not be bred, except for crossbreeding. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th column will be bred.