ADAM’S ANIMALS

More people own chickens in the UK than they do hamsters or guinea pigs. Farmer Adam Henson takes a closer look at one of our more unusual breeds: the Araucana and its colourful egg

A look at moustachioed Araucana chickens and their colourful eggs.

Easter is the time of year when you just can’t resist tucking in to an egg. I don’t mean a chocolate one, delicious as they are, but the thrill of tiptoeing into the henhouse and collecting a freshly laid egg from your own brood. It’s not as unusual as it sounds, with around 600,000 of us in the UK now keeping our own chickens.

To shake things up a bit this spring, how do you fancy cracking open a blue egg for breakfast on Easter Sunday? Or perhaps even a green one? We’re waking up to the novelty of eating coloured eggs in this country and the blue/green trend is mostly thanks to a chicken called the Araucana. These friendly, alert hens have been called Britain’s original blue-egg layers, and it has made them famous. There are plenty of other breeds that lay coloured eggs of course, such as the Welsummer, the Maran and, in my part of the country, the Cotswold legbar. But the Araucana is unique in the poultry world for laying eggs with a colouring that runs through the entire thickness of the shell, not just the outside.

ANDEAN ORIGINS

The Araucana comes from South America; European traders and adventurers came across them when they began exploring the continent, and flocks can still be found in parts of the Andes. They’ve been in the UK since the 1930s, when a Chilean ship foundered off Scotland’s west coast and the chickens on board ended up on the Inner Hebrides. At least, that’s how the story goes.

THE ORIGINAL HIPSTER HENS

The first thing that strikes you about this breed is the face. It’s hidden behind a mass of feathers that form a crest on the head, a fluffy beard underneath and a pair of tufts (or a muff in poultry-speak) that point outwards either side of its beak. To me, it resembles a magnificent moustache like the trademark bristles of television presenter Dick Strawbridge. The hipster in the hen house, perhaps?

Among the 12 Araucana varieties there’s also a tailless strain, although these rumpless Araucanas are a much more common sight in America. It’s not just the feathers that are missing; they don’t have a caudal appendage, better known as the parson’s nose, which gives them an unusual stumpy appearance from the back. Plenty of poultry breeds have long, even luxuriant tail feathers, so what’s the reason for a tail-free chicken? It dates back to the breed’s Chilean origins, where it was easier for rumpless birds to escape predators and, apparently, being tailless made them better fighters.

For people in the know, there’s nothing new about these perky little birds. The Araucana Society of Great Britain was founded as long ago as 1956, but things really stepped up when a set of breed guidelines was created in the 1970s and a new organisation, the British Araucana Club, began to help maintain the standard and promote the breed. It worked. Today, there are serious breeders and keen enthusiasts all over the British Isles who have fallen for this brilliant ‘back garden’ chicken. Now the summer season is getting underway, you’ll be able to see some of those proud owners exhibiting their best prizewinning poultry at agricultural shows and country fairs around the UK, as sure as eggs is eggs.

Ask Adam: What topic would you like to know more about? Email your suggestions to editor@countryfile.com