Araucana vs. Ameraucana

Warm, lazy days -- Miss Susie Hutchins and Jack relax in the shade.

The bantys enjoy some watermelon -- a post Labor Day chicken feast. They seem blissfully happy in the chicken tractor.





The young Ameraucanas and Wyandottes are biggering and biggering (that's a Dr. Seuss word and if you haven't read The Lorax, you should) -- but they haven't caught up yet to their long legs (yellow for the Wyandottes, an odd greenish-gray for the Ameraucanas.) Their plumage is getting quite colorful -- one reason I like the Ameraucanas is the interesting mix of colors -- solid white, buff, golden, and mixtures thereof.

True Araucanas (I've recently learned with a little exploration into this chicken stuff) are tailess, have ear tufts (wild sprouts of feathers aside their beaks) and lay blue-green eggs. Unfortunately those ear tufts are tied to a lethal gene -- making it hard to produce show-quality birds and making even non-show quality fairly expensive.

I'm happy with my mutt Ameraucanas -- descended, no doubt, from the real thing but possessing rumps (the Real Thing even lacks a coccyx and slopes down at the rear). All I ask is that they lay the blue-green eggs,

Some of the Amerauanas are developing characteristic ear muffs (not tufts) -- you can see it on the white one here.