In selective breeding often there are traits that the breeder may or may not be aware of but often become apparent through matting outcomes. This has and likely will continue to happen to me as I constantly work towards improving my stock. Sometimes the resulting unexpected offspring are simply what are considered culls and removed from the breeding program, and sometimes it is these interesting birds that spawn the creation of new breeding projects. The foundation stock for my Lemon Blue project brought in plenty of unwanted color genetics that have produced some interesting Araucana through its development. Of corse when working with the blue Andalusian gene, the Lemon Blue’s will never breed true so I will always have some birchen and splash birchen birds as well. Likewise, the Lemon Blue foundation stock also brought with it some recessive duckwing base as well as the columbian gene. Each of which has contributed in some way to create some of the unique birds shown below. One of my foundation birds from my black stock was heterozygous for mottled and through line breeding, I have had some mottled birds show up as well.
