Araucana Chicken

The Araucana chicken(Sometimes falsely named an Easter Egger) is a breed of blue egg laying chicken which originates from the country of Chile.

General
The Araucana chicken is one of only a couple standard laying hens who produce blue colored eggs, and considered to be one of the first officially recognized as a unique chicken breed. Despite their blue laying nature, they tend to lay less annually compared to other popular laying chicken breeds.

Behavior
Though the behavior between one chicken to another may vary heavily, Araucana chickens are typically intelligent and inquisitive but flighty, normally refusing to be picked up unless they have been trained to do so from a very young egg.

Due to their intelligence, they are often featured on the Internet and Television as doing tricks such as playing piano or going through hoops, similar to the Welsummer.

In the scernario of a pecking order, due to their size and dominant nature they are typically higher ranked amongst the order, but this may vary depending on age and size of the specific Araucana rooster or hen.

Appearance
Araucanas can be a wide range of colors such as brown, gray and blonde type colors in a large assortment of pattern and designs. They most notable have prominent spotted or striped designs on their necks, with large feather puffs on each of their chicks though some hybrid species may lack these puffs. The hens typically have smaller crows.

History
Araucana chickens were created at an unknown date predating the 1910s, but were officially recognized as a chicken breed when an Spanish aviculturist named Salvador Castelló saw them and quickly named them Araucana after the region they many of them lived in Chile. Originally, it was believed they were a different species of ground foul but it was quickly discovered they were a more exotic breed of domestic chicken.

Bantam
A relatively popular Bantam variant of the Araucana exists.

Gallery