Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Uniqueness Of The Araucana

By Kor Rassad


Chickens are one of the most useful animals on the planet and many people are getting into raising them, even in the city. Many breeds can be used for three purposes, for meat, eggs and fertilizer. If someone wants to raise chickens in their back yard, it is wise to pick a breed that is good at what you want it to do for you. For instance, for unusual egg color and being a pet, the Araucana is a great choice.

For many years, this breed of fowl has had people taking notice. They first wrote about them in the sixteen hundreds. Ferdinand Magellan talked about them in his travels around the world. It was said that he got the fowl from a relative of the Araucana Indian tribe known as the Guarani Indians. They named the chicken breed after the first tribe to own and breed them. The breed as earned the reputation to be the chicken to have when you are dependent on the fowl.

The next time the chickens are mentioned in history is in the 188s when they were raised by the tribe for which they got their name. They were noted so much in history because of their unique traits and appearance. They came to the states when the Spaniards did their exploring because they rarely left their fowl when they went out. When they brought the chickens to America, they interbred with other breeds which created other fowl such as the Americana.

A rumpless chicken is easy to spot, they do not have the normal feathers around their back ends the way most chickens have. Many confuse the Americana chickens to be an Araucana, but that type of chicken is lacking the rumpless feathers that make them a truly unique chicken.

Another very important trait of this type of chicken is the tuffs it has around its ears. They are one of the few that have this trait, the Americana may have a trace of these tuffs, but not as noticeable as the true breed.

They truly stand out because of the eggs they lay. There are only two true colors of eggs from chickens, white and blue. Brown eggs are a white egg with a brown overlay; the green egg is a blue with a brown overlay. True blue eggs typically come from the Araucana breed, Americana typically lay green eggs which is a sign of cross breeding with other types of chickens.

Another trait to the pure bred is the tuffs around its ears. These tuffs of feathers are very easy to see and may be visible on other breeds as well.

When raising chickens as pets or for egg production, this breed is a very good choice. The color of the eggs laid by them will amaze your family and friends. To find them, you need to find a hatchery or someone that has some that they have bred.




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