Ameraucanas are a soft feathered breed, with the feathers being held somewhat loosely from the body, but not as loosely as say, a Cochin. Ameraucana youngsters are softer than cotton! The Splash Ameraucana are exciting to watch grow up, as their colors develop more by the day. Their cheek feathers (referred to as muffs), make it difficult to for them to see things from certain angles, so they frequently tilt their heads in the most adorable ways. Their pea combs make them tough to sex early on, and the breed standard calls for no wattles, or very small wattles. Like other breeds, the cockerel's combs will likely darken ahead of the pullets, but there are always those late bloomers! Often you will have to wait until they are 8-9 weeks old and inspect the saddle feathers in front of the tail for solid evidence of sex. Splash Ameraucana also tend to have sexually dimorphic plumage, with males having darker heads, necks and saddle feathers than the females. Ameraucanas are a slow maturing breed. Pullets are not likely to lay eggs earlier than 6 months. Cockerels continue to mature up to around 10 months. With sufficient early handling, Ameraucanas are a very friendly breed. They are very intelligent and food motivated.

 

Breeding Splash to Splash results in 100% Splash offspring, so the variety does breed true. These birds lay around 200 medium to large blue eggs per year. 

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Pictured is one of our most handsome young Splash Ameraucana cockerels at 16 weeks. 

 

See our blog post, "What You Need To Know About Buying Ameraucanas" for more information on the pitfalls of the Ameraucana Breed!