Araucana, opinions please

[Milzy241]

Hi, we have had a few breeds of chickens in the past and still have Bluebells, light sussex, speckeldys and ex-batts and love the lot but we were now thinking of araucanas. Has anyone had first hand experience of them ? I have read info on them and they sound great but i know there are some wise people on here so opinions welcomed.
They will be sharing space with all above named breeds, if thats relevant or not.

Many thanks

Milzy

[Richard]

Hi

There are three Forum Member's snippets on this Down the Lane page..

http://www.downthelane.net/chicken-breeds/araucana-hens.php

I haven't any personal experience of them, but the eggs are always popular !!

I'm sure a few Member's will reply.

Richard

[Milzy241]

Thanks for the link Richard.

[Mercedes]

We had a beautiful Lavender Araucana and she laid the most lovely blue eggs. She was however extremely nervy and you couldn't get near her, her nature was pretty much like our cream legbar, odd they that both lay blue eggs and seem so similar in nature

[Richard]

It's very interesting.
When I was doing research plus getting Forum Members to write a few words about particular breeds I found it quite difficult.
Some would say ref a breed, very friendly, another not very friendly, one comment would say they're good layers and others not etc. etc.

Just shows you can never be absolutely sure about any breed. Like all human races and countries I guess, friendly people and miserable ones

What's the saying.....you pay your money and take your chance

Richard

[Milzy241]

I wonder if they are better in groups of their own kind ?? Perhaps if I was to get 3 and get them use to each other before I even start to introduce them to the other 5 girls ??

[Mercedes]

I wonder if they are better in groups of their own kind ?? Perhaps if I was to get 3 and get them use to each other before I even start to introduce them to the other 5 girls ??

When we got our pure breeds we bought 4 different breeds, a Lavender Araucana, a Salmon Favorelles, a Welsummer & a Cream Legbar. They were all 14wks old and we assumed hadn't had any contact with each other before we bought them. We never had any problems with them getting along with each other and 4yrs later we are down to just the Welsummer & the Cream Legbar and I can honestly say they are almost joined at the hip. They have very different personalities, our Welsummer is very vocal and very bold and almost seems to look after our nervy Cream Legbar. At night our Welsummer always sits in the doorway of the Eglu while our Cream Legbar sits on the nest and it's a delight to see them always with each other

I do remember that when we got them we did keep them separate from our rescue hens for a fair while and I think it's always a good idea to quarantine new hens

[stace]

My cremalegbar is really scatty. She is the only large girl i have left. She now lives with the 3 bantum girls, and 1 boy. My bantys are very freindly, sally you can pick her up and she will sit with you for ages, not so with the other ones though. I really do think its just pot luck how they turn out with any breed of hen. I had 2 Araucanas that i had hatched myself, those 2 along with the other creamlegbar got taken by the fox 3 years ago i was devestated. One her name was bella was so tame, yet the other two really scatty. I miss my big girls, but having had so many problems with them over the years (all egg conected) I am sticking to the ones i have. Never had a soft shell from my bantums in 4 years, they are on strike at the moment, but i would rather have no eggs than them having problems