Hatchery mistake is our gain?

[4H kids and mom]

As you know, we are raising our brood of 27. 14 are Ameraucanas and the others were 'supposedly' all Easter Eggers. Well, the hatchery called me today which I thought was odd, and told me they think they messed up and threw in an extra of another breed. They asked if I had a chick that looked 'different' (which if you have Ameracanas and Easter Eggers is ALREADY hard to tell!) and I went to look and at first didnt notice anything unusual so I told them no and that everyone was fine. They said it was alright and no big deal, just that they had 'misplaced' a chick somewhere that day. Appearantly, the daughter breeds chickens on her own and charges much more for them. She is out of town and her chicks hatched out the same day as our order did. I hung up thinking two things: 1) why does a hatchery care about one chick? and 2) oooo, did I get something neat? Well, I went back up to look them all over once more and I think maybe I did! One of them appears to be breed standard for an Araucana! It is the only one that has no tail, and its 'bum' is actually 'shorter' than the others (rumpless) and its the only one to have little tufts sticking out of its cheeks. Its really cute and I hope maybe it is pure and maybe 'fair show' quality? The whole thing just kinda weirded me out so I had to share it!

 

[mudlake]

Good luck they are hard to come by. I just hatched 7 of them and I am very lucky. Tony

 

[pueawjapygrta]

it's possible that they had those eggs in the incubator with yours and they got mixed together...

 

[bigzio]

mom, congrats on the new find. What would of happened if you told them you had a araucana in the flock? They might make it worth your while.

I don't know for sure, but I think they might.
Just a thought.

bigzio

 

[Freebie]

I'm with bigzio on this. I would let them know and see what happens. You never know...

 

[lively Bee's]

Our araucana/americanana came from MM we have ended up with serveral that is rumpless with ear tufts

 

[Foghorn]

I am confused. Is an araucauna that rare? Are rumpless better?

 

[soonerdog]

Since the araucana eggs were blue also they were probably trying to make a judgement of how many of their daughter's araucana eggs hatched. They are already pretty certain that if any of them hatched that they made the mistake of shipping them. There isn't anything that they can do at this point except to make a few contacts to see if customers did get this little rare, "different", rumpless bird. This would allow them to gather information about how well their daughter's araucanas hatched. The percentage.

See, "if any of the eggs were left unhatched in the incubator" (they probably had all the blue and green eggs together from the ameraucana, araucana, and EE) they would not be able to tell if they were ameraucana, easter eggers, or araucana. I think the contact was just to attempt to gather information they needed to know. Enjoy your rare chick! Some of the other folks who raise these araucana chickens know how difficult it is to get a good hatch rate because of the death gene. Johnny

 

[4H kids and mom]

soonerdog, thats pretty much what I had figured, but part of me worried they'd want it back! lol

I have ONLY 27! How could I spare ONE???!?!

foghorn, they are only considered more 'rare' because many of them die before hatching. Something about a fatal gene in their genetic structure. A 'true' Araucana MUST be rumpless and have feather tufts of equal length on each side of its head. The 'tailed' version that is more common with hatcheries are the Ameraucanas which lack the tufts, but have beards and muffs (puffy patches) instead. Then you have the Easter Eggers that are more of a hodge-podge chicken that can have tufts, tails, muffs, beards, or be clean headed, but there is no real conformity or standard to them. They are kept for their gentle nature and pretty eggs, not for showing purposes from what I hear. Some hatcheries will sell EE's as Ameraucanas (or they misspell it 'Americana') and unsuspecting fair entries have been disqualified because of it.

I will call them back and tell them what I think I have and see what they say about it. I suppose if an offer were good enough, I could part with ONE chicky! lol

But maybe they will just want to know who hatched what.

 

[hinkjc]

Keep that chickie for the 4H kids and educate them. There are so many children out there being mislead on the Araucana breed, just like adults. Use your good fortune and teach them what a special bird this is.

I have a few points on Araucana. Yes, they must be tufted/rumpless to be show quality (and many other trait requirements I won't get into). However, many araucana hatch tailed, partial tailed and clean faced, as well as single tufted and double tufted. The various hatch types are due to breeding where some breed tailed birds to rumpless birds to keep the spines from getting too short (and odd looking). Even breeding a rumpless to rumpless doesn't guarantee all rumpless chicks. They are a challenging breed to work with, but a lot of fun too for those who appreciate them. As someone mentioned, they have a fatal gene, which is increased by breeding tufted to tufted. Getting two of this gene causes increased mortality at the end of the hatch and breeders expect to lose 25 percent from the get go. A lot of factors go into breeding these bids, which is why I am sure the hatchery was checking up. I bet they want to know where that special chick went and if they indeed had their hatch rate figured properly. I know we "lost" a beautiful tufted bird last year and found out the tufts were picked in the brooder and we sold it as a clean faced pet to someone. The tufts grew back and they sent us pics - it was wonderful to see what a beautiful cockerel he grew into. Have fun with your special chickie.

Jody