Any Pics of Tufts, Muffs, and Beards?

I am looking to see if anyone can post some pictures of eye
tufts, muffs and beards on ameraucanas, or aruacanas. I
have some amer's, and don't want to breed them if they
all have eye tufts. They are all looking to have some degree
of what I think are eye tufts, but want to make sure. Some are
also looking like some low feathers on the head below the
ears and toward the back of the neck kind of sweep back off
the neck area.
Also, if anyone can tell me a bit more about the fatal gene,
and why it comes about, as well as other amer traits that are
ok to breed, that would be most appreciated.

Here is a picture of our beauty Eagle. Not sure if she is Ameraucana or Auracauna or even if she is full bred. She has feathery fluff at her face, pea comb, she isn't rumpless and she lays blue green eggs. She has gorgeous feathers though, and the color is so pretty. They told us when we got her that she was an Aruacana, but I thought those were rumpless and the Ameraucana had the tail?

Oh, she's beautiful. Looks very much like 2 of my amer's,
only this one looks like it might have a beard, too. But,
since I'm not used to what those look like, not sure. I am
intrigued by her leg color, too. To me, it looks like a dark
slate green. And you say she lays blue green eggs?
A couple of mine have Eagle's leg color, while 2 have more
lighter olive green. I have seen pictures of full arauc's w/
very blue looking legs.
Hope to see more pictures, and I have
no idea what/ where muffs are. (thinking around the ears?)

Thank you for the pic, Smedge.

Yes, the rumpless are the araucanas, and the tailed or
any that lay blue/green eggs or with the gene are ameraucana.

She is a beauty isn't she. And yes, her eggs are a bit of a blue green and the yolks in them are always almost orange.
She does have dark slate green legs.
Here is another picture of her.

I too would think muffs would be around the ears. She has the fluff of feathers near her ears and yes a beard. She molted here a few months ago. She looked awful, but when she feathered out again she was so pretty.

Had to post this one. It is a picture of one of our baby Ameraucanas.

I could just cuddle that baby to pieces, it is sooo cute.
I like the beard on Eagle. it's a nice 'accent'. I just
really like the amer's- all of 'em. I'll get some pics of
mine and post tomorrow, may be late, as we have our
grangirls this weekend.

i understand that the shade of the leg is the shade of the egg? any truth to that? never had one, but use to love buying hte eggs before i had chickens...

What do you mean when you say rumpless?

no rear feathers i think...

That's what I was thinking until I saw the 2nd pic of the hen and she has tail feathers.

If I'm not mistaken, the Araucana has no tail feathers and the Ameraucana does. The Easter Eggers also have tail feathers.

When we had ours, some had beards, some had ear tufts, and some had both. When I got my chicks from MMH last year, the "rare" breed they sent me was an Araucana rooster that was pure white. Seeing as the chicks I ordered were Black Australorps, obviously someone there had a wicked sense of humor. I gifted a farmer friend of ours with the rooster and from what I understand, he is doing very well.

But, just use your imagination and picture a flock of black chickens with a lone white one in the middle of it.

soundl ike target practice to me. or a flag of surrender to a flying predoatr LOL

i said i wouldn't have a white chicken. now my DH has two white crested polish, son has Snowy, the white bantam cochin, and we have SIX white babies in a brooder... well, three may be porcelain, we'll see.

what was i thinking? next thing you know i WILL have some bearded rumpless thing ranging around here ^_^

I said no to whites, too. But now my almost all white Deleware is one of my favorites. Still like the brown ones best.

The chicken in the above pictures is an Ameraucana, she has a rump.
Yes, rumpless is no tail feathers. They go more rounded at the rear. Quite funny looking to me.

I have to agree, they are strange looking. I am almost sorry I gave that rooster away, it would have been a great conservation piece when people saw it. But, I didn't want any more roosters at the time.

I have Ameraucanas.
They have muffs and beards.
Araucanas have ear tufts.
Neither have "eye tufts".
There is much confusion regarding Ameraucanas, Araucanas and Easter Eggs Layers.
For those who would like to know the differences you might want to read this article I wrote:
http://groups.msn.com/ABCShareingPlace/ameraucanamythsandfacts.msnw
I also have more pics on my website of my Ameraucanas.
http://www.freewebs.com/cottage_rose_birdsnblossoms/
Click on the "Ameraucana Chickens" link when you get there.
They also have a photo album...."Ameraucana Images".

Blue (l) and black (r) Ameraucana pullets

This message was edited Apr 6, 2008 6:35 PM

Silver Ameraucanas.

Wheaten Ameraucanas

In this pic left to right:
wheaten, buff, brown-red, wheaten, silver Ameraucana hens

Cottage Rose you have some beauties. Love the blue, how gorgeous!

this has some pictures of auracanas

http://www.araucanasonline.com/page2.html

not all have tuffs
there is something about breeding tufted rumpless together that has a lethal gene

Thank you Cottagerose and Crested chik for the great
photos and links.
Cottagerose, could you tell me a bit more about the
lethal gene? If the standards are all to have muffs, do
you just expect to have high chick mortality, and breed
them anyway? If the breeders are Ameraucana, is there
no worry about this? Thaks for helping me clear this up.

Ameraucana's don't have the lethal gene problems and why I chose to raise them instead of Araucanas. I'm sure if you did a search you could find more info regarding the Araucana's lethal gene problems.

Would this be muffs and a beard?

Muffs also? She/he is the biggest and boldest, but
no crow yet. This is Big red.

Yes that is a muff (side poofs) and beard (under beak).
You have Easter Egg Layers.
They typically have willow (greenish) shanks like yours and yellow skin and/or beaks, all ear marks of the brown egg laying genetics in their background.
They typically lay a drab olive green egg like the one in this pic.

oh, my! what beautiful EGGS you have!

the olive were always my favorite back when i was not a chicken owner and bought farm fresh eggs... now we have a young duck who is laying that color!

What beautiful eggs! In the little pic, the 3 look kind
of orange, but blown up, they look an interesting shade
of brown. Are those Marans eggs? cooool.

No not Marans...Rhode Island Reds but that pic looks like the color contrast was enhanaced too much.
Here's the same pic untouched...

What a colorful bunch of eggs. Makes a pretty pic.

This message was edited Apr 8, 2008 9:12 PM

I like to take egg pics...

bowl o' eggs

all in a days work...

I don't blame you for liking the picture taking. Eggs are
very cool. Did the turquoise colored eggs hen's have
blue legs? I really like those, and have checked out
SkyBlueEggs.com for pictures of theirs. I like the O.D.
green ones, too, and I had better- since that's my hen's
leg color.

Thanks truest. :)
Ameraucanas don't have shank color that matches their eggshell color.
As far as I know, that must be an old wives tale.

Which chickens lay the olive eggs and which ones lay the turquoise eggs? How big are those eggs?

The more full blooded the araucana, the bluer the
eggs, I think. The more ameraucana they are, the
eggs tend on the greenish side, and can even be
buff pink and tan as well as olive. They are an average
chicken size egg.

I'm not sure about Araucanas but APA (American Poultry Assn.) standard bred Ameraucanas are suppose to lay a pale blue egg.
Their eggs are large size and often don't get extra large even in mature hens.
There are 8 Ameraucana colors recognized by the APA:
white
black
blue
silver
wheaten
blue wheaten
buff
brown-red
(lavender or self blue is currently being worked on)
To develop some of these colors brown egg laying breeds were used.
So in colors such as black and white Ameraucanas the eggs tend to be green from the brown eggshell genetics influence. When you cross a brown egg layer with a blue egg layer you usually get olive green egg layers in the resulting offspring.
Easter Egg Layers (mutts not a breed) often lay an olive or green eggs, but some lay blue eggs as well. I have found that the black and blue Ameraucanas that I have predominantly raised tend to have a pale green vs. pale blue egg and the silver Ameraucanas tend to have better egg color I suppose because white egg layers where used to develop them but of course the egg color can vary from strain to strain.
Nere-the less once there is brown egg genetics in the background it seems that it is very hard to breed out the green eggshell color unless you do some VERY selective breeding and culling.

It should be noted that compared to other breeds, some of which are hundreds of years old, the Ameraucana breed is very young (only 25 years old) in comparison and so therefore you will find alot of variances in the breed. In the breed there has only been several breeders who have been devoted to improving the breed in large enough numbers that can impact the breed. The breed is still being worked on.

If anybody is interested in obtaining real Ameraucanas I recommend that you DO NOT buy from online auctions such as eggbid and so on but rather contact a breeder via the Ameraucana Breeders Club website or the breeders listing on ABC Sharing Place (an Amer. forum/info site). You will find both links on my websites Ameraucana page.
http://www.freewebs.com/cottage_rose_birdsnblossoms/ameraucanachickens.htm
Likewise with Araucanas...your best bet is to conact reputable and knowledgable breeders via the breed club's website.

Way too many people sell Easter Egg Layers as Ameraucanas.
While theres nothing wrong with Easter Egg Layers, if you are seeking APA Ameraucanas it can be discouraging to know that most of the people out there are selling EEL and claiming they are Ameraucanas when they aren't.
If you read the breed standard description of Ameraucanas in my article "Ameraucana Myths & Facts" you will know what to look for in the future if you are seeking real APA Ameraucanas.
Click Here to read my article:
http://groups.msn.com/ABCShareingPlace/ameraucanamythsandfacts.msnw

Also "Americana" is an incorrect name and spelling of Ameraucana




This message was edited Apr 9, 2008 2:16 PM

Amazing. Learn something new every day. I thought
if it wasn't an araucana, it was then an ameraucana.
I hope they get that sorted out, it's confusing to me.