Hello Frederick,
Thanks for joining us. Your birds have very interesting colors extremely similar to some in my project. Your rooster's coloring is almost identical to mine. However, I have been working on a re-create project to achieve Black Tail Red Ameraucana bantams. I hope to capture a much stronger mahogany color pattern. I say a re-create because I became interested in this color variety after seeing pictures of some stock created by a former member, Jim Tuckwood. John Blehm had posted pictures of Jim's birds onto the forum.
I contacted Jim and learned that he had sold all of his Black Tail Red bantam stock. He had no recollection of whom he had sold them to. At this point, I began to learn as much from Jim as I could about how he set out to create them. I've contacted Jim several more times and we have had good discussions. One main thing that I learned from Jim is that he never was pleased with their feathering. He had used Rhode Island Red bantams crossed to ameraucana bantams for his first generation stock. He was unaware that the RIR bantams carry slow feathering genes that he introduced into his Black Tail Red project.
Learning from Jim's attempt, and speaking with Mike Gilbert for advice, I have hopefully learned how to avoid the RIR's slow feathering gene being introduced into my project.
I think Royce was breeding large fowl Black Tail Reds from a cross of LF Wheaten Ameraucana and Buckeye. Hopefully, he will share with us about his project. I'm not sure what work Janie has been doing. Hopefully, she will share with us also. Enjoy your birds, Frederick, and again we welcome you!
Johnny
Welcome to the Ameraucana Forum!