- Ameraucana
The Ameraucana is a
breed ofchicken developed in theUnited States . The name is aportmanteau term of "Amer"ican and Ar"aucana" (a related breed). Ameraucanas come in both a large and bantam variety. Eight colors are officially recognized for poultry shows by theAmerican Poultry Association : Black, Blue, Blue Wheaten, Brown Red, Buff, Silver, Wheaten and White.Characteristics
Ameraucanas are similar to Araucana chickens because both have pea combs and lay blue shelled eggs, but they have many differences and are completely different breeds. Some other Ameraucana traits include full tails, muffs and slate or black legs depending on the variety. Bantam cocks weigh 30 ounces and bantam hens weigh 26 ounces while large fowl cocks weigh 6 1/2 pounds and large fowl hens weigh 5 1/2 pounds.
Confusion with Easter Egg chickens
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. The American Poultry Association's "
American Standard of Perfection " contains breed and variety descriptions of all recognized standard bred poultry in North America.History
Ameraucanas were bred from
Easter Eggers , a mixed non-standard breed derived from breeding the native South AmericanAraucana with Old World varieties. The APA officially accepted Ameraucana as standard breeds in 1984.References
* [http://ameraucana.org/ Ameraucana Breeders Club]
* [http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/2/2-3/John_W_Blehm-3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/2/2-3/John_W_Blehm.html&h=143&w=250&sz=9&hl=en&start=51&sig2=gpEo9ctTI2KAEcE0YR1QlQ&um=1&tbnid=kYDVYCQt1-i2JM:&tbnh=63&tbnw=111&ei=93IbSKyNFpTopgSRnIT7CQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dameraucana%2Beggs%26start%3D40%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN Ameraucana article] from Backyard Poultry magazine
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