Featured Breed: Ermine Ameraucana

Description

We’ve been working on our Ermine Ameraucana line since fall of 2021 through a line cross of Becky Pelton’s experimental ‘ermine’ Ameraucana project hens and Brad Stonebarger’s quality standard bred black Ameraucana. A few generations later, we’re seeing good type and conformation, crisp co-dominant black and white plumage, more-than-ample muffs and beards, and eggs that register as A7, A9, A11, and A15 on the Ameraucana Alliance egg color reference chart, with an occasional saturated B2, B6 or C5.

Ermine breeding strategies can result in black offspring, ermine offspring, and dominant white offspring. All offspring at Crosshatch are based upon pairings that are 50% standard-bred, closed line solid Black. This is the best way to build quality into the line over multiple generations of line breeding or clan/spiral mating.

Ermine Ameraucana (black and white co-dominant project variety)

Ermine refers to the black and white patterning of this project variety of Ameraucana where black and dominant white plumage is understood to be co-dominant. Generally speaking, Ermine plumage pattern happens in about 30% of the offspring from an Ermine x solid Black pairing, which is considered by most breeders working on the project variety to be the best practice for Ermine breeding strategies currently. Ermine plumage isn’t totally understood, but we can build quality into the birds by crossing an Ermine (that may be carrying somewhat unknown recessive genetics and modifiers) with a quality, closed-line standard-bred black Ameraucana. This is how we’ve built our line at Crosshatch since fall of 2021, between one outcross of Becky Pelton’s ermine hens under a very nice solid black Male from Brad Stonebarger.

These birds will exhibit a wide variety of patterning in their plumage. In general, the pattern of white and black should be evenly distributed, with some females showing more black at their tales or possible patchiness of black feathers here and there across their body. They may have ‘freckled’ faces, beaks, and legs. We have not seen blue plumage, shredding, lack of muffs/beards, or other undesirable qualities in our last two generations of offspring, but these things could happen on down the line. This is a project variety in its early phases!

We aim to build quality into this project variety to help it towards a standard, but please know the variety has a storied history and is considered to be carrying a lot of genetics— especially modifiers that determine how much black pigment can show through or how the skin is melanized— that are not totally understood. If you choose to breed Ermines, please commit to breeding towards this standard too!

Black Ameraucana (solid blacks from our closed line Ermine pairings)

Black Ameraucana resulting from Ermine pairings are simply black ameraucana. They did not inherit the dominant white gene they need to be Ermine. If you choose our Black Ameraucana, you will receive the majority solid Black offspring of our Ermine pairings. We’ve bred multiple generations of these pairings and really like what we see— beautiful iridescent black birds with giant muffs and beards and nice saturated blue eggs. But please note that the ermine side of the genetics are known to carry a wide variety of genes and modifiers that are not totally understood yet, and some of these modifiers may carry down the line as recessive traits that could show up in subsequent offspring. We don’t really know what that could mean, which is part of the fun in breeding closed-line project varieties! Technically, you can call these Black Ameraucana, and we’re very happy with their standard features. But it is best practice to acknowledge that they come from Ermine pairings if you choose to sell them to further breeders. [P.S. If you are looking to keep standard-bred Black Ameraucana that you can sell as standard-bred Black Ameraucana, I’ve been really happy with Brad Stonebarger’s line!]

Dominant White Ameraucana

The dominant white Ameraucana is a little tricky, and should be sought only after some significant consideration of your breeding goals. When paired with a solid black Ameraucana, a dominant white Ameraucana will produce 100% Ermine offspring. Great, right? Not so fast. Please consider the following ethical and quality-control considerations before you aim for the Fast Track breeding approach to Churn Out All Ermines All the Time.

• Dominant white birds, in my experience, generally lack the quality and consistency that breeders who care about the wellbeing of the Ameraucana breed tend to look for and rely on. They simply don’t yet have the history and commitment of many breeders working to build quality into the lines. I’ve seen dominate white birds with no muffs or beards, misshapen heads and cross beaks, poor plumage with red leakage (indicating that they may be genetically both recessive white and dominant white at the same time), and a whole host of other disqualifications being bred forward to produce 100% Ermine offspring. All of these poor traits are then bred forward into Ermine lines, which is tragic for a new variety that deserves quality control.
• Dominant white birds are NOT the accepted variety of White Ameraucana that has a standard and breeding community dedicated to its quality. While dominant white birds will have features that distinguish them from the accepted recessive White (dominant whites tend to have pink legs instead of standard slate gray legs, for instance) flooding the market with dominant whites stands to confuse and un-do the work of many breeders before us, if paired unscrupulously.
• A dominant white Ameraucana paired with a dominant white Ameraucana will produce dominant white offspring, but the quality of that offspring in type and conformation (as well as recessive DQs) will be at question for all the reasons above. Dominant whites can can be bred from Ermine x Ermine pairs, but only once quality features have been built into those Ermines through closed line selective breeding (based on a good line of Blacks). And those breeding Dominant whites might consider working on a dominate White standard project to ensure they are not confused with recessive white. We will be producing our first dominant whites in our fourth year of breeding Ermines for these reasons.
• There’s a chance you could receive a dominate white chick in your Ermine chick shipments, but it isn’t likely based upon our pen configurations. Our Dominant White pullets won’t be ready until Fall of 2025, which gives us time to grow them out and cull those we wouldn’t want to release into breeding programs. If you join the wait list now we’ll stay in touch— if we see a lot of DQs in the offspring the wait could be long! 😉

What to Expect

Chicks: When you order an Ermine chick or Ermine pullet, you are getting an Ermine (black and white) bird. In the case of chicks, it is possible that one or more of your chicks will turn out to be dominant white (a yellow chick that grows out all white feathers instead of black and white feathers). You will not receive black Ameraucana chicks unless you order black Ameraucana chicks, as they can be clearly distinguished at hatch. (We DO NOT call all birds hatching from Ermine pairings Ermine, that’s silly and a misunderstanding of the genetics! Our price reflects the fact that our pens produce about 30-40% ermine offspring. But don’t sleep on the blacks, they are not only critical for breeding further generations, they are adorable and quickly becoming our homestead favorite!)