Standard Sized Chickens
Pure bred exhibition Quality Chickens
Our focus is on breeding towards APA Standard of Perfection for all breeds and varieties that we keep. This time the breeds were selected for dual purpose qualities. We want good egg production in a pretty package and we don't want to have too many extra roosters hanging around. We like variety as well, though our main breed is the orpington and aracaunan. We also feel that in addition to keeping useful breeds, we wanted breeds and birds with good temperaments as we have children around them we cannot have mean birds.
Blue/Black/Splash Aracaunas
I've been focusing on blue and black aracaunas, with emphasis on body as well as eggs!
Aracaunas
Truly a unique chicken! These rumpless and tufted chickens are renowned for laying brightly coloured blue and green eggs. They are on the smaller side (partially because they are tailless they look smaller) but are quite compact and well built. Breeding them to standard can be quite difficult as they carry 1 tufted gene... 2 copies of that gene will kill them, but often times, birds get no copies of the tufting gene and as a result are clean faced (which isn't showable). Many people breed tufted to clean faced to keep mortality low. So far all my birds are clean faced. I have a pair of ginger reds and a blue and black.
True araucanas can be incredibly hard to find, there are alot of cross birds sold as pure breds, and many times you see people selling ameracaunas as them by mistake. Know your breed standard and talk with the breeder, it can save you a lot of dissapointment. Also remember that breeders with pure and quality stock can also have birds show up tailed and/or tuftless. It doesn't make them any less pure bred araucana, it makes them non standard. Thats all part of the fun and challenge of this breed, getting all the traits to express properly in them.
True araucanas can be incredibly hard to find, there are alot of cross birds sold as pure breds, and many times you see people selling ameracaunas as them by mistake. Know your breed standard and talk with the breeder, it can save you a lot of dissapointment. Also remember that breeders with pure and quality stock can also have birds show up tailed and/or tuftless. It doesn't make them any less pure bred araucana, it makes them non standard. Thats all part of the fun and challenge of this breed, getting all the traits to express properly in them.
Blue & Splash Marans
Our blue and splash maran breeding group consists only of feather legged birds completely lacking in any copper. We got our start in blue marans via hatching eggs and discovered that there is a big problem with bleed though on alot of the solid blue/black/splash maran lines out there. It is commonly expected that there will be a very small amount of gold leakage. We have selected very hard against that and not one of our breeders has a single gold feather! That we are proud of! We breed towards the french standard (feather legged). Always we keep a close eye on egg colour as marans are known for their rich chocolate brown eggs. One thing to note about the disposition of marans is that they can be more aggressive towards other chickens. We don't recommend keeping them with a timid breed, but as always keep an eye on your flock and watch for early signs of stress. They are another large dual purpose breed, quite rare (particularly the solid blues, coppers are more common) originating in France that is renowned for its large chocolate brow eggs. They are very hardy, and active foragers.