Do you know the difference between Easter Egger chickens and Ameraucana chickens? If you plan to someday breed and sell your own chicks or if you plan to exhibit show poultry, you must be able to distinguish between an Easter Egger and a true Ameraucana. Unsure of the distinctions? Here are three quick A’s to help you differentiate between these two farmyard favorites.
Easter Egger Chickens Ancestry
Unlike the Ameraucana, the Easter Egger chicken is not an actual breed. It is a hybrid chicken, the result of crossing a blue-egg-laying breed with another breed, usually a brown-egg layer. Like the Ameraucana and its close cousin, the Araucana, the Easter Egger possesses the gene for blue eggs. While the Ameraucana and the Araucana always lay sky-blue eggs, however, the Easter Egger lays eggs in an array of pastels, including green, pink and yellow (hence the name “Easter Egger”) thanks to its mixed heritage. Note: One Easter Egger hen will not lay a rainbow of egg colors but rather one color throughout her laying years.
Appearance
Ameraucanas and Easter Egger chickens sport fluffy muffs and beards, both of which give these chickens their characteristic full-cheeked faces. Both birds have cold-hardy features such as pea combs and miniscule (or absent) wattles, small earlobes, and full hackles and tail feathers. Coloration, however, is where the two diverge. The American Poultry Association recognizes only eight varieties of Ameraucana: black, blue, wheaten, blue wheaten, white, silver, buff and brown red. The Easter Egger has limitless variations, with its mixed lineage coming through strongly in its feather coloration and patterning. Columbian Wyandotte parentage, for example, might yield an Easter Egger with dramatic white and black feathering, while a Buff Orpington pedigree might result in golden Easter Egger chicks. A Rhode Island Red bloodline might bring about a dark auburn bird.
The confusion between Easter Egger chickens and Ameraucanas can be further compounded when the mixed breed features purebred coloration. Not sure whether your chicken is a blue Easter Egger or a blue Ameraucana? Check its shanks. The Standard of Perfection defines the color shank for each recognized Ameraucana variety (for a blue Ameraucana, slate shanks and toes with white bottoms). An Easter Egger’s shanks are most commonly dark olive but can be any color, depending on its lineage.
Easter Egger Chicken Availability
A limited number of commercial hatcheries now offer purebred Ameraucana chicks, usually with a disclaimer that these babies are not meant for exhibition. The vast majority of purebred Ameraucanas are available only through private breeders. If you wish to raise your own flock of true Ameraucanas, consider consulting breeder directories such as those found online at the Ameraucana Breeders Club or the Ameraucana Alliance. Depending on the variety, expect to spend between $10 and $30—or more—per Ameraucana chick.
That price difference is the chief telltale sign that your feed store’s Ameraucanas are actually Easter Egger chickens. These hybrid baby chicks usually sell for $1 to $3 apiece and, unlike Ameraucanas, are practically ubiquitous. You’ll find Easter Egger chicks at feed shops, farm-supply stores, local farms and commercial hatcheries. Unfortunately, many of these places sell their Easter Egger chicks as Ameraucanas—or Americanas, Araucanas and even Acurananas. This mislabeling is typically not done out of malice but out of ignorance. As retail businesses, these shops and hatcheries focus on moving merchandise rather than discovering details regarding their product. The farmers selling “Ameraucana” chicks most likely originally purchased mislabeled chicks from hatcheries, farm-supply stores and feed shops.
Upon seeing the Americana sign on that stock tank, I fleetingly considered finding the shop owners and explaining the difference between Easter Eggers and Ameraucanas. I’ve tried every single spring for the past three years, though, once even providing a comparison chart. In the end, I decided that it’s more important for you to know the difference than it is for them.
This article about Easter Egger chickens was written for Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.
