Ameraucana thread for posting pictures and discussing our birds

[jeremy]

Here is the mama of most of my girls, the blue wheaten. Also one of her babies, the wheaten pullet. Anxious to see what kind of babies I get from her. Aiming for a nice size wheaten cockeral.

Mother & daughter are both lovely- I love the color they have in their tails, especially the Wheaten pullet.

 

[FVRM]

Mr. Hawk came visiting today. I lost a beautiful black hen. Now, I have 2 black hens left, two blues and 2 splash along with two beautiful blue roos to begin my breeding program. I know that is enough for my needs, but it kills me when I lose one. I also had intended to use two of the blacks with my lavender roo, but looks like he will only have the lavender hen and one black. I despise hawks, period.

they seem to take the best ones. it's like they got an SOP book programmed into their minds or something

 

[MrsBachbach]

Yes I do. Going to keep them with the roosters a bit longer before I make some available, but I am planning on selling this year.

Sorry to hear you lost one. It's always the best ones that get taken.

 

[THeelChickinKY]

@dstokely
So sorry about the hawk. It is just terrible when you lose a sweet chicken. Ours are not happy right now because they were getting picked off one by one and so we've finally had to shut them in the run. We try to give them some free time before set when we can be out there to chaperone, but in winter there's only so long you can stay outside. Good luck - maybe yours won't be too persistent!

 

[MrsBachbach]

if you sell eggs let me know! i have a hen and a cockerel but the darn cockerel has bantam in his background and I really don't like banties. I would really like to infuse more LF into them.  

I do, but the number will be limited with this variety since I have a small number of girls. Shouldn't be too much longer before I'm ready to sell some.

 

[OnceInaBlueMoon]

...

Mr.  Hawk came visiting today.  I lost a beautiful black hen.  Now, I have 2 black hens left, two blues and 2 splash along with two beautiful blue roos to begin my breeding program.  I know that is enough for my needs, but  it kills me when I lose one.  I also had intended to use two of the blacks with my lavender roo, but looks like he will only have the lavender hen and one black.  I despise hawks, period.
[/quote

I'm sorry that happened. I had that happen with one of my favorite French black copper Maran pullets this past summer. I think I remember us talking about it! I have a very large roaming area that is fenced in with cattle panels for the chickens. I think this year I am going to put CDs or small mirrors on top of the coops, because I have read that if a hawk sees its reflection it won't swoop down. I don't know if there is any truth to it but I figure its worth a try! Our biggest preds are dogs!

 

[dstokely]

@dstokely
So sorry about the hawk. It is just terrible when you lose a sweet chicken. Ours are not happy right now because they were getting picked off one by one and so we've finally had to shut them in the run. We try to give them some free time before set when we can be out there to chaperone, but in winter there's only so long you can stay outside. Good luck - maybe yours won't be too persistent!

i had gotten too comfortable as I have not had an attack since summer. I was going to separate them tomorrow into their breeding pens. I was waiting for this last cold night to go by and for it to warm up a bit. Day late. There is always going to be a predator of some kind...hawks, coyote, fox. As bad as it is, at least it was not my one lav hen or my one blue wheaten hen.

 

[dstokely]

Quote: Thank goodness we are far enough off the road that we don't get a lot of dog traffic. I have never been bothered by a neighbor's dog, but we had one that did not like chickens or cats. We lost him last fall at the ripe old age of 16. Hawks have been my major problem. I like for them to free range, but when I get one attack, there always seems to be several more as they are an easy meal. My house is further up the mountain so it is difficult for me to keep watch.

 

[MrsBachbach]

I don't have pics of him at that age, but I do have some of others. He looks like a blue wheaten would. The colors in the males of this variety are often all over the place when they are growing up. You have to be patient and wait until they are at least about seven months old before really judging them. Sometimes longer. The beard on my blue wheaten male had more white than blue in it when I showed him last year. Now it has more blue, so it took awhile with him. Here is a picture of a couple young males. I can't remember their age when I took them, but one is much younger than the other. You can see how the feathers start changing color as they get older.

At this point, your blue looks female, but, that dark patch showing on the wings has me wondering. The comb looks female to me.
The blue male's feathers will start darkening up on the head, wing and saddle area and form a cape of dark feathers. The pointy saddle feathers sometime don't show up until maybe fourteen or so weeks of age. So, I don't know if it's just the lighting in the pic or if your girl does have some darker edging on her wings, but I would just keep an eye out for darkening patches of feathers in those areas. That's usually how I can tell a blue male from a blue female early on. Both of these pictures are of young blue males. Notice how some of the feathers are starting to darken.

 

[birdman55]

beautiful birds....whats the difference between this type and an ee....im not sure what kind that I have....