The
Araucana, also known in the USA as a
South American Rumpless, is a
breedA breed is a group of domestic animals with a homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics that distinguish it from other animals of the same species. When bred together, animals of the same breed pass on these uniform traits to their offspring, and this ability—known as "breeding...
of
chickenThe chicken is a domesticated fowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other bird...
originating in
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. The Araucana is often confused with other fowl, especially the
AmeraucanaThe Ameraucana is a breed of chicken developed in the United States. The name is a portmanteau term of American and Araucana . Ameraucanas come in both a large and bantam variety...
and
Easter EggerAn Easter Egger is any chicken that possesses the "blue egg" gene, but doesn't fully meet any breed description as defined in the American Poultry Association and/or the American Bantam Association standards...
chickens, but has several unusual characteristics which distinguish it. They lay blue eggs, have feather tufts near their ears, and a tail. To comply with the north American standard they must have no tail and are
rumplessRumpless is a term used for the mutation which causes the tail of an animal to be absent. Usage and examples can be found in Manx cats, Manx Rumpy, Belgian d'Everberg and Araucana chickens....
.
The ancestors of the modern Araucana chicken were purportedly first bred by the
Araucanians IndiansThe Mapuche are the indigenous inhabitants of Central and Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. They were known as Araucanians by the Spaniards. This is now considered pejorative by the people and the term Mapuche is the one most often used by people in conversation...
of
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
-- hence the name "Araucana." The Araucana as we know it today is a hybrid of two
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
n breeds: the Collonca (a naturally blue-egg laying,
rumplessRumpless is a term used for the mutation which causes the tail of an animal to be absent. Usage and examples can be found in Manx cats, Manx Rumpy, Belgian d'Everberg and Araucana chickens....
, clean-faced chicken) and the Quetro (a pinkish-brown egg layer that is tailed and has ear-tufts).
The
Araucana, also known in the USA as a
South American Rumpless, is a
breedA breed is a group of domestic animals with a homogeneous appearance, behavior, and other characteristics that distinguish it from other animals of the same species. When bred together, animals of the same breed pass on these uniform traits to their offspring, and this ability—known as "breeding...
of
chickenThe chicken is a domesticated fowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other bird...
originating in
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. The Araucana is often confused with other fowl, especially the
AmeraucanaThe Ameraucana is a breed of chicken developed in the United States. The name is a portmanteau term of American and Araucana . Ameraucanas come in both a large and bantam variety...
and
Easter EggerAn Easter Egger is any chicken that possesses the "blue egg" gene, but doesn't fully meet any breed description as defined in the American Poultry Association and/or the American Bantam Association standards...
chickens, but has several unusual characteristics which distinguish it. They lay blue eggs, have feather tufts near their ears, and a tail. To comply with the north American standard they must have no tail and are
rumplessRumpless is a term used for the mutation which causes the tail of an animal to be absent. Usage and examples can be found in Manx cats, Manx Rumpy, Belgian d'Everberg and Araucana chickens....
.
Ancestors
The ancestors of the modern Araucana chicken were purportedly first bred by the
Araucanians IndiansThe Mapuche are the indigenous inhabitants of Central and Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. They were known as Araucanians by the Spaniards. This is now considered pejorative by the people and the term Mapuche is the one most often used by people in conversation...
of
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
-- hence the name "Araucana." The Araucana as we know it today is a hybrid of two
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
n breeds: the Collonca (a naturally blue-egg laying,
rumplessRumpless is a term used for the mutation which causes the tail of an animal to be absent. Usage and examples can be found in Manx cats, Manx Rumpy, Belgian d'Everberg and Araucana chickens....
, clean-faced chicken) and the Quetro (a pinkish-brown egg layer that is tailed and has ear-tufts). The Collonca male and female are very similar, with very few secondary sexual characteristics like comb, wattles or tail coverts to distinguish them. Naturally, after centuries of introgression with other South American races, for example, Quechua, Huapi, Ona and Mapuche, South American Indian villages Colloncas are more often than not, composites. The Quetro or Quetero is also nearly combless but the sexes are markedly dichromatic. The male of both Colloncas and Quetero have unusual voices. The Quetero has a multi-syllabilic laughing crow. Colloncas have a slightly musical crow. Muffs and beards are present in most South American domestic fowl. The European equivalent of the North American show standard variety Araucana is what one comes across in South American villages. Quechua and Mapuche do not have tufts and resemble the Ameraucana. The Quechua is larger, and more powerfully built. It is shaped more like a game fowl than the Mapuche which is smaller, lighter and less domesticated in the sense that it is a semi-feral bird while the Quechua is a domestic bird reared for meat and eggs. The Mapuche is also known as the Chilean Passion Fowl and the Aymara Fire Fowl. Mapuche are generally crested and exhibit markedly colorful plumage in both sexes. The Quechua is unremarkable in plumage, closely resembling the North American standard Ameraucana.
a composite between many of the South American domestic fowl races is known as the Falklands Isles Hen. These birds are descended from many different strains of birds purchased from Indian villages on the eastern coast of South America. The Falkland Isles hen is the progenitor of the Shetland Isles hen, U.K. Araucana and Ameraucana.
The current world wide Araucana
Standard (except North America) indicates a medium to large sized chicken with a tail that lays bluish-green eggs. Specific features are feather ear tufts, muffs and beards, with a very much reduced comb, a small feather crest and a complete absence of wattles.
The current
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
n standard calls for a chicken that is rumpless (missing their last vertebrae and lacking a tail), possesses ear-tufts (feathers that grow out from near the birds' ears), and lays blue eggs. In the United States and Canada, muffs, beards, and tails are all disqualifications.
Araucanas are often confused with two other types of colored-egg-laying chickens: Ameraucanas and Easter Eggers.
The Ameraucana should also lay blue eggs, but unlike the Araucana it has a tail and possesses muffs and a beard, which are quite different from the tufts of the Araucana, and no feather crest. Muffs and beards provide insulation against the cold. They are downy filoplumes that grow on the face below the eyes, extending to beyond the ears as well as the throat. Earrings or "Tufts" as they are known in Western countries are actual feathers that grow from fleshy lobes called peduncles on either side of the birds' face. Quetero are prominently tufted but many females have only small earrings or lack them altogether. Tufts are associated with a lethal gene, which makes them difficult to attain.
The Easter Egg Chicken is not an actual breed; the term refers to any bird that lays colored eggs. The vast majority of birds sold as "Araucanas" or "Ameraucanas" are actually neither. Instead, they are mixed breeds with no APA (
American Poultry AssociationThe American Poultry Association, or APA, is the largest poultry organization in the North America. Founded in 1873, and incorporated in Illinois in 1923, it is also the oldest livestock organization in the U.S....
) Standard that lay colored eggs, ranging from bluish and greenish to pinkish-brown, and sometimes even tan, gray or white.
The Araucana's eggs are not more nutritious than eggs of other colors (despite popular myth), but the birds are reliable layers of medium-sized eggs. Because of the Araucanas' capacity to forage for much their own food, the egg yolks tend to be more nutritious than those of large standard breeds that prove to be less efficient forages. The Araucana, if hand-raised specifically, is extremely well-tempered, calm and trusting.
Suggested Polynesian origin
There has long been debate whether araucanas were bred from chickens brought by Europeans to South America after Columbus or rather arose from chickens brought directly over the Pacific Ocean from someplace nearer to all chickens' presumed ancestral home in Southeast Asia. If araucanas predate the Europeans in South America, their presence implies pre-Columbian trans-Pacific
contacts between Asia and South America. In 2007, an international team of scientists reported the results of analysis of chicken bones found on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile, and their results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States . This initial report suggested a Polynesian pre-Columbian origin. However, a later report looking at the same specimens concluded:
A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.
Recognized breeds
The APA Araucana belong to the following Poultry Class AOSB "All Other Standard Breed " while the ABA belongs to the following class "All Other Comb Clean Leg". In Great Britain, the PCGB (Poultry Club of Great Britain) classifies it as Light, Soft Feather.
The colours recognized by the APA/ABA/PCGB are :
The APA recognizes 5 colors "Black , White , Black Breasted Red , Silver Duckwing , Golden Duckwing "
The ABA recognizes 6 colors " Black , White , Black Breasted Red , Blue , Buff , Silver"
The PCGB recognizes 12 colors "
LavenderLavender or Self-blue refers to a plumage pattern in chickens characterized by a uniform, pale bluish grey color across all feathers. The distinctive color is caused by the action of a recessive gene, commonly designated as "lav", which reduces the expression of eumelanin and phaeomelanin so that...
, Blue, Black/Red, Silver Duckwing, Golden Duckwing, Blue/Red, Pyle, Crele, Spangled, Cuckoo, Black and White.
Araucana, Ameraucana or Easter Egger?
When the Araucana was first introduced to breeders worldwide, in the mid-20th century, it was quickly realized that the genetics that produced tufts also caused chick mortality. As it turns out, two copies of the gene causes nearly 100% mortality shortly before hatching. One copy causes about 20% mortality. The tufted gene is dominant however. Because no living araucana possesses two copies of the tufted gene, breeding any two tufted birds leads to half of the resulting brood being tufted with one copy of the gene, a quarter being clean faced with no copy of the gene, and a quarter of the brood dead in the shell having received two copies of the gene.
In the decades to follow, most breeders took one of two tactics - either to preserve the old style of bird, or to breed out the tufts while increasing productivity.
In 1976, the first standards for the breed were accepted by the APA, conforming to the traditional style. This was followed, in 1984, by a second standard for the "improved" variety.
The gene for blue eggs is dominant, so the term "Easter Egger" is used to describe birds of mixed breeding that produce such eggs. Unfortunately, these mixed breeds are often incorrectly labeled as Araucanas or Ameraucanas, and marketed to backyard poultry hobbyists who are not aware of the difference.
In short, the differences are as follows:
- USA & Canada Araucana – Tufts (lethal allele), rumpless, blue eggs, green legs and yellow skin (with exceptions).
- US Ameraucana – Beards and muffs (NO lethal gene), with tail feathers, blue eggs, blue legs and white skin.
- British, Irish, New Zealand, Asian, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Bellarus, Ukrainian, Scandinavian, Argentinian, Chilean, South African, Pacific Islands, Brazilian, Mexican, Peruvian, Arabic Nations, Indian, Pakistan, Nepalese and Australian Araucana – Beards, muffs and crest, with tail feathers, blue eggs, slate legs and grey/white skin.
- Easter Egger – Variable traits.