Until 1920, the breed was known only in South America, then European poultry breeders liked it and they distributed and adapted it. In our country, Araucans are rare birds. They are bred, as ornamental, because of the appearance and special color of the eggs, although they do not cause trouble to the breeder. Read more about the features of the Araucan breed in the article below.
Exterior, characteristics, features
Small and tailless birds - Araucan roosters weigh 2-2.5 kg and chickens 1.6-2 kg.
Representatives of this breed have:
- rounded body;
- long back;
- well developed shoulders;
- rounded belly and lower back;
- crest-shaped comb;
- eyes are red-orange;
- the metatarsus is painted in the corresponding plumage color.
According to the standard, the head of Araucana can be “decorated” with one of three options:
- beard with whiskers;
- tassels, crest;
- tassels and beard.
The British believe that the tail is acceptable for the breed, but only if there is a crest.
Colors are 12 types:
- cuckoo or hawkish;
- wild;
- wild blue;
- blue golden mane;
- black and red;
- blue wheat;
- silver maned;
- wheat;
- the black;
- blue;
- blue edged;
- golden maned.
What does the chicken and rooster of the Araucan breed look like, the nature of their behavior and some features and nuances of breeding can be seen in the video clip:
Egg production characteristics:
- the main feature of the breed is that laying hens produce eggs with a blue or greenish shell (in the cold season, the color of the eggs may become less bright);
- hens begin to lay eggs in 5.5-6 months;
- sometimes laying hens Araucan can be late and begin to lay eggs only in 10 months (late egg production occurs if the laying hen belongs to late autumn or spring brood);
- annual productivity - 160-180 eggs;
- eggs weigh from 56 to 72 g;
- laying hens are most productive at the beginning of the laying period, as well as in spring with access to open range. Moving chickens to a new place can reduce egg production by 2-4 weeks.
Read more about how to choose and properly maintain laying hens to get the maximum possible number of eggs, read here.
Pros and cons. Is it worth it to breed?
The indisputable advantages of the breed include:
- early puberty and, as a result, egg production;
- rush well during molting, as in any other;
- viability of young individuals;
- unpretentiousness and adaptation to conditions of detention;
- good tolerance of temperature changes;
- good taste of meat;
- original appearance of birds;
- unusual coloring of the eggshell.
Among the shortcomings can be identified:
- due to the low prevalence of breed, chickens and eggs Araucan are expensive;
- low ability to incubate - chickens have lost the instinct of hatching eggs;
- cool temper among roosters;
- problems with fertilization of eggs due to structural features of the body.
Most often, Araucan is bred in order to decorate the yard with an unusual bird or get delicious raw materials in the form of eggs of an unusual color.
Content
Birds are unpretentious to the conditions of detention. They can be kept in poultry houses and on a free range following the following rules:
- The chicken coop for Araucana should be separate - from other species of birds, and from other colors of Araucan. The fact is that roosters of this breed do not get along with relatives.
- Families are made up of 1 rooster and 2-8 chickens.
- On one square meter is placed no more than 4 hens.
- Feeders and drinking bowls are installed in the house.
- Drinkers and feeders are regularly cleaned and disinfected (feeders after each feeding, drinkers - 1 time per week).
- They make sure that there is always water in the drinkers, which is changed every day.
- In winter, they watch that the drinker does not freeze.
- The hen house floor is covered with straw bedding.
- They build a roost in the house at the rate of 30-35 cm wide for 1 individual.
- Equip a nest for 4-5 layers.
- Well, if there is an opportunity for open walking. Araucans can graze well and find food under their feet.
- Walking yard fenced net. Since the birds do not fly too well, they do not need high fences and a top cover. Only a canopy is built here so that birds can take shelter from rain and direct sunlight in hot weather.
- Regularly remove poisonous plants in the yard.
- With a cellular content, it is important to equip the chicken coop with good ventilation and to prevent drafts in the room.
- Araucans can easily tolerate frosts of up to 8 degrees, so chicken coops do not need to be heated if it is not about the northern territories and severe cold.
Daily regime
To create optimal conditions for birds, you should adhere to the following daily regimen:
- Morning rise. Regardless of the time of year, chickens wake up at 5-6 in the morning. To do this, turn on the light and open the chicken coop.
- The first meal. 3 hours after awakening, the chickens are fed. After about an hour, clean the food and wash the feeders.
- The second meal. It should be evenly distributed during wakefulness and daylight hours. For example, in winter, birds are fed at about 15 hours, in the summer - about 19 hours.
- Sleep. At 9 p.m., the hens are driven into the chicken coop and the lights are turned off.
Nutrition
Feed Araucan should be normalized, as these are small birds, and unlike broilers, they do not gain muscle weight, but grow fat. They need to be fed with additives of minerals, which allows laying hens to produce high-quality eggs with a strong shell.
The breed of chickens of Araucan needs constant replenishment of the body:
- protein (beans, fish waste, earthworms, bone meal, oilcake);
- carbohydrate-rich foods (cereals, potatoes, carrots, squash, squash);
- fats (oats, corn);
- vitamins A, B, D (bone meal, silage, yeast);
- minerals (gravel, shells, wood ash, chalk, crushed shells);
- greens - a necessary component of the diet throughout the year (for the winter you can prepare finely chopped needles, which are not mixed with the rest of the food, but served in a separate bowl or buy special vitamin supplements).
A sufficient amount of calcium must necessarily come into the food.
To increase egg production, the diet should be calculated according to the following standards for 1 chicken:
- grain - 130 g;
- potatoes (boiled) - 90 g;
- wet food - 30 g;
- oilcake - 7 g;
- chalk - 4 g;
- bone meal - 2 g;
- yeast - 1 g;
- salt - 0.5 g.
Another variant of the diet involves seasonal separation.
Spring-summer period:
- cereals and animal feed - 50 g;
- root vegetables and boiled potatoes - 40g;
- greens - 30 g;
- fish / bone meal, meal - 12 g;
- chalk - 5 g;
- salt - 0.5 g.
Autumn-winter period:
- wheat - 50 g;
- barley - 40 g;
- bran - 20 g;
- corn - 10 g;
- cockleshell - 5 g;
- chalk - 3 g;
- bone meal - 1 g;
- salt - 0.5 g.
Layers must adhere to a slightly different diet so that the eggs are presentable in appearance and properly formed. Read more about feeding laying hens in the next article.
Breeding
In order to get healthy offspring, you need to make families of roosters with a brush and chickens with a beard or vice versa. The point is a semi-lethal gene that contains information about the appearance of a crest on the head. If both parents with semi-lethal genes are in the family, then the chickens will be unviable.
To breed these birds, the help of a poultry breeder is necessary, since Araucan has not only a tail, but also a tail. Poultry farmers cut a few centimeters of fluff around the cloaca to increase the fertility of eggs, which without this procedure is effective by no more than 60%.
Experienced farmers are advised to start breeding Araucan with an adult couple or buy chickens.
When buying young Araucans, one must remember that males and hens begin to differ only after 12 weeks. You can accidentally buy only males or only chickens and you can’t make a family. But it’s not possible to immediately understand exactly whether an individual has a semi-lethal crest - it is necessary to wait for molting when barbs and tassels appear on the heads of birds.
Selection of eggs for incubation
Araucan chickens are hatched. Cases of brood hens are extremely rare.
Often there is false incubation in Akraukan - after several days of incubation, the chicken throws a nest.
Before laying in the incubator, eggs from poultry are stored in a cool, dark place with the sharp tip up for 5 to 14 days.
They must meet the following requirements:
- the shape should be natural (not elongated), size - medium - most often the chicks hatch from these eggs;
- the uniformity of the shell should not be broken by dents, growths and especially cracks;
- the yolk should be centered - the eggs with the displaced or torn yolk, as well as the oversized air chamber are rejected.
Otherwise, hatchery hatchery of Araucan is no different from hatchery of other chickens. It implies the following sequence:
- Training:
- the incubator is disinfected and turned on for warming for a day;
- eggs for 8 hours are brought into the room for a gradual and uniform warming.
- Incubation periods:
- 1-11 day - after placing the eggs in the incubator, set the temperature to 37.9 ° C; humidity - 66%, eggs are turned over 4 times a day, the incubator is not aired;
- 12-17 days - the temperature drops to 37.3 ° C; humidity - 53%, eggs should be turned over 4 times a day, the incubator is aired 2 times for 5 minutes;
- 18-19 day - the temperature remains 37.3 ° C, the humidity drops to 47%, the eggs are turned over 4 times, the incubator is aired 2 times per day for 20 minutes.
- 20-21 days - the temperature should be 37.0 ° C, humidity - 66%, the eggs stop turning, the incubator is aired 2 times for 5 minutes.
- The appearance of chickens. After 21 days, the chickens begin to hatch. The process takes several hours.
More details about the incubation of chicken eggs are written here. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with this material before you break into the receipt of chicks using an incubator!
Chick Care
The chickens are not left in the incubator for a long period - they are immediately transferred to a special box in which:
- install a lamp for heating at a height of 50 cm above the bottom, preferably infrared (you should not achieve uniform heating of the entire area of the box, it is better that the chicks can move inside and choose the optimum temperature for themselves);
- the floor is covered with paper - it is not recommended to use a newspaper for these purposes, since the printing ink contains lead;
- it is better to choose a drinker;
- set low feeders or use an ordinary plank.
As feed use:
- starter feed - the main balanced feed for chickens;
- in the first week - eggs mixed with semolina are introduced into the diet at the rate of 1 egg per 50 g semolina, you can also add cottage cheese or milk powder here. Do not feed chickens with one egg. This can lead to death, because the egg has a lot of protein and fat and there is absolutely no fiber;
- from the third day, you can add wheat, corn, oat groats with yogurt to the diet;
- from the fifth - chopped greens (nettle, dandelion, alfalfa, clover).
Millet can be given to chickens only in boiled form.
Possible problems
There are not many breeding problems with Araucan. Consider the main ones.
Diseases
Birds have good health and very rarely get sick. If the conditions of detention are violated, they can be infected with the following pests:
- Poohoot. The parasite damages downy stems. Hens begin to fuss and itch. To eliminate the problem, they are treated with insecticides in the form of a spray and also, the chicken coop is disinfected.
- Feather tick. Infection leads to baldness. The problem is that it is impossible to remove it, so infected individuals are killed.
- Fleas. Infection is manifested by frequent scratching of birds. To eliminate fleas, you need to disinfect the chicken coop and carry out a regular change of litter.
- Helminths. Pathology is manifested by poor appetite and reduced motor activity. The most common cause of infection is contact with wild birds. Treatment involves taking special anthelmintic drugs that are prescribed by a veterinarian.
To avoid the spread of chicken diseases, it is recommended to regularly clean the house.
Rushing bad
There may be several reasons:
- Age-related changes. Araucans can scam up to 10 years of age, but egg production is greatly reduced. Maximum productivity is observed up to about 1-2 years.
- Overeating. Obesity reduces egg production. Adult chicken should not exceed 1.8 kg.
- Infection with parasites. Has a direct effect on egg production downward.
Where can I buy?
The main difficulty with the purchase is that under the guise of Araucan you can buy eggs of mixed breeds:
- hens bred from Araucana and the Russian crested, give blue eggs;
- when crossed with breeds carrying brown eggs, individuals are obtained that produce olive-colored eggs.
The gene responsible for the color of the eggs is well inherited and the eggs of individuals with mixed blood cannot be distinguished by eye from the eggs of purebred Araucana.
It is best to contact the following trusted factory organizations:
- VNITIP "Gene Fund" Sergiev Posad near Moscow - sell daily chickens.
- Private farm of Alexander Ivanovich, Pushkino, Moscow Region - hatching eggs are sold in limited quantities.
- Peasant farm A. Lukin, Chelyabinsk region, Oktyabrsky district, Krutoyarsky village - chickens and young animals are sold in season.
Price may vary:
- from 250 rub. up to 1200 rub. depending on the age of the young;
- about 100 rub. per egg.
Despite the unpretentiousness and good health, Araucans are not very popular. The main difficulties in breeding are the high cost of eggs and chickens, as well as the low fertility of eggs due to the structure of the body. Distinctive features of chickens are attractive appearance and unusual, from blue to green, color of eggs.