Understanding Chicken WORLD’S BREEDS OF CHICKEN: AMERAUCANA, THE BLUE EGG-LAYER

By Manny Pinol

In an effort to give followers of this page a deep understanding and knowledge of the domesticated chicken, manokpinoy.com has started a series on the different breeds of chicken from all over the world.

I have classified the breeds into egg-layers, meat producers and dual-purpose.

Most of the articles reposted here were downloaded in part from wikipedia.com and ask.com.

Today, we will start featuring the egg layers.

Ameraucanas

Ameraucanas are one of only three chicken breeds to lay blue eggs; the others being the Cream (Crested) Legbar and the Araucana.

They bear many similarities to the Araucana, including a pea comb, a beard, and muffs.

However, unlike the Araucana, the Ameraucana has a tail.

Despite this, some countries, primarily England and Australia, recognize the Ameraucana as a tailed variety of the Araucana instead of its own unique breed.

There are two size variations of this breed; a large variety, and a Bantam, or smaller variety. Bantam cocks weigh 30 ounces and bantam hens weigh 26 ounces while large fowl cocks weigh 6½ pounds and large fowl hens weigh 5½ pounds.

Hens of this breed tend to be very broody.

Standard Weight: Rooster – 2.95 kilos; Hen – 2.50 kilos

Eggs

They are exceptional egg layers laying about 250 eggs a year. They lay light blue eggs[1] with the occasional green and start laying at about 5 or 6 months old.

Confusion with Easter Egg chicken

The Ameraucana Breeders Club defines an Easter Egg chicken, or Easter Egger, as any chicken that possesses the blue egg gene, but doesn’t fully meet any breed description as defined in the APA standards. Further, even if a bird (that possesses the blue egg gene) meets an APA standard breed description, but doesn’t meet a variety description or breed true at least 50% of the time it is considered an Easter Egg chicken.

History

Ameraucanas were bred from chickens imported from Chile.[1] The APA officially accepted Ameraucana as a breed in 1984.[citation needed]

The characteristic muff and beard of the Ameraucana are present in U.K. Araucana as these traits are present in the Mapuche and Quechua de Artes founder stock imported into Europe from the Falkland Islands.

The fully feathered faces of the founder stock are of vital importance as they insulate the birds against the frigid cold of southern coastal South America.

Winds from Antarctica bring the temperatures to below zero for months at a time. Blue egg laying chickens brought to the Falklands by Argentinians, traded from Mapuche and Quechua speaking Indians, were later exported from the Falkland Islands by British guano and fishing fleets.

The Ameraucana is descended of U.K. Araucanas brought into North America during the World Fair in Montreal’s 1967 Expo. Molecular data retrieved from specimens of known provenance in the Falklands, U.K., Shetland Isles and Canada, proved to be closely related.

Consequently, the Ameraucana is probably closer genetically to the South American founders than the North American Araucana. In about 1976 a group of people imported some Chilean Araucanas. At least one of these people kept his flock breeding only among themselves.

Chicks from their blue eggs looked similar to the British tailed Araucanas and the Ameraucanas, however most do not meet the standards of true breeds. They resemble Falkland island birds, originating from the founder birds of Chile (Quechua).

References

Gail Damerow (1 March 2012). The Chicken Encyclopedia: An Illustrated Reference. Storey Publishing, LLC. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-60342-776-0. Retrieved 14 June 2013.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ameraucana.

Ameraucana Breeders Club

Ameraucana article from Backyard Poultry magazine