Characteristics
Ameraucanas are similar to Araucana chickens because both have pea combs and lay blue shelled eggs, but they have many differences and are completely different breeds. Some other Ameraucana traits include full tails, muffs and slate or black legs depending on the variety. Bantam cocks weigh 30 ounces and bantam hens weigh 26 ounces while large fowl cocks weigh 6 1/2 pounds and large fowl hens weigh 5 1/2 pounds.
They also are friendly and quite curious and tame but sometime they get picky of their egg laying spot because it's probably not comfortable they sometimes need more bedding for their spot.
Confusion with Easter Egg chickens
The Ameraucana Breeders Club defines an Easter Egg chicken, or Easter Egger, as any chicken that possesses the blue egg gene, but doesn’t fully meet any breed description as defined in the APA standards. Further, even if a bird (that possesses the blue egg gene) meets an APA standard breed description, but doesn’t meet a variety description or breed true at least 50% of the time it is considered an Easter Egg chicken. The American Poultry Association's American Standard of Perfection contains breed and variety descriptions of all recognized standard bred poultry in North America.
In other words, most Easter Egg chickens are "mutts" which happen to carry the blue egg gene. True Ameraucanas are rare.
Also, when they are mating the rooster will pull out the back feathers of the hen.
History
Ameraucanas were bred from Easter Eggers, a mixed non-standard breed derived from breeding the native South American Araucana with Old World varieties. The APA officially accepted Ameraucana as standard breeds in 1984.
The characteristic muff and beard of the Ameraucana are present in U.K. Araucana as these traits are present in the Mapuche and Quechua de Artes founder stock imported into Europe from the Falkland Islands. The fully feathered faces of the founder stock are of vital importance as they insulate the birds against the frigid cold of southern coastal South America. Winds from Antarctica bring the temperatures to below zero for months at a time. Blue egg laying chickens brought to the Falklands by Argentinians, traded from Mapuche and Quechua speaking Indians, were later exported from the Falkland Islands by British guano and fishing fleets. The Ameraucana is descended of U.K. Araucanas brought into North America during the World Fair in Toronto and Montreal's 1967 Expo. Molecular data retrieved from specimens of known provenance in the Falklands, U.K., Shetland Isles and Canada, proved to be closely related. Consequently, the Ameraucana is probably closer genetically to the South American founders than the North American Araucana. In about 1976 a group of prople imported some Chilean Araucanas. At least one of these people kept his flock breeding only among themselves. Chicks from their blue eggs looked similar to the British tailed Araucanas and the Ameraucanas. However most do not meet the standards of those breeds. They look a lot like the falkland island birds in some photos and are decendents of the founder birds of Chile. They come in shades of red, mixed with black, blue, and gold.
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