History in North America
The “Araucana” as we know was never a true breed even in South America
where it originated.
The Araucana Indians also known as the Mapuche Indians of Chile had two
breeds of chickens which they raised. One was called the “Collonca”,
which was a small bird with a very small single comb, no tail, also
known as rumpless, and laid blue eggs. The other was called “Quetro”
which was known to have a peculiar stammering crow. The Quetro was a
small bird that had tufts, a peacomb, a tail, and laid brown eggs.
Tufts, rumplessness and blue eggs occasionally occurred when a rumpless
bird was crossed with a tufted, tailed bird, but these offspring were
rare. The latter were called “Collonca de Artes” meaning “Collonca with
Dr. Rueben Bustos, a poultry expert in Chile, had himself developed a
strain of the so called Collonca de Artes, and wrote about them in his
country, in 1914. Dr. Bustos’ birds were the product of years of
selective breeding. They were described as blue egg layers; small
single combed; red eyed; clean legged; all the birds were rumpless with
In 1914, the esteemed Professor Salvador Castello Carreras, a Spanish
poultry expert, and headmaster of the royal official school of poultry
industry in Spain, Arenys de Mar, Barcelona, had observed and
photographed some Collonca de Artes at an exhibition in Santiago, and
later he reported on these birds in 1921 in a paper to the First
World’s Poultry Congress in the Hague, Holland, and proposed the name
“Gallus Inauris” which was accepted.
The word Gallus Inauris is Latin. In the National Geographic they
translate the word Gallus by a Comb but from what I can find the Latin
word Gallus means Cock, Rooster. The word Inauris corresponds to
Ear-rings. This name is totally appropriate to describe our Araucana.
This news from Professor Salvador Castello Carreras caused a flurry of
excitement throughout the poultry world. At the time he did not realize
the “breed” he had seen and described was not a native fowl of Chile
but rather the cross of two fowls. But that rather Dr. Rueben Bustos
birds were the products of many years of selective breeding. In 1924
Professor Castello corrected himself but by then the wave of interest
in these birds had already begun.
Development of the Araucana as a breed in North America
In North America a breed is not recognized as such until the APA or ABA
As far as know; The first description of the Araucana to be published
in the United States was by John Robinson in the Poultry Journal of
1923, another article featuring rumpless and tufted Bantam Araucana
pictures can be found in the book "Popular Breeds of Domestic Poultry",
published by the Poultry Journal Publishing Company, Dayton, Ohio, 1924
Later, in 1925, Mr. Keller of the PrattExperimental Farm in
Pennsylvania wrote about his small flock the first Araucanas imported
to the USA. The earliest imports were mostly of selected rumpless and
In April 1927 the National Geographic published an article "The races
of domestic fowl" as well as pictures of paintings under the title
"Fowl of the old and new world". One of the paintings depicted tufted,
rumpless Araucana just as first described by Professor Salvador
Castello Carreras in his 1921 paper.
In September 1948 the National Geographic published another article,
"Easter egg chicken". In this article they mention that the Araucana
was first imported to the United State and bred successfully by Mr.
Ward Brower Jr. According to the story, his correspondence with the
Department of agriculture indicated that not a single living Araucana
existed in the US; two breeders were known to have owned them, but
their birds had all died. He then decided to import them directly from
Chile. In the autumn of 1930, he received 3 sad looking chickens more
dead than alive. He described them as a rooster with obvious Dominican
blood, a hen with RIR, and the other with RIR and Barred Plymouth Rock.
One was rumpless and all had the feather "whisker" trade mark of the
Were the two unnamed breeders in the National Geographic story the same
as the above from the Poultry Journal? The book "Popular Breeds of
Domestic Poultry seems to support the theory that at least one of them
By this time, the Araucana had become a much sought after novelty for
the blue egg as well as for her peculiar look. This was due in part to
publicity by the above article “Easter Eggchicken” and unfounded
statements and rumours promoting the Araucana egg as being low in
cholesterol, which was greatly exaggerated to say the least.
Since the blue egg gene is a dominant gene and responding to a general
demand, commercial hatcheries were easily able to outcross the blue egg
laying Araucana with everything else and sell their progeny as
“Araucanas”, when they were anything but. We can’t really blame the
hatchery for this practice, since at the time there was no officially
recognized Standard in North America for the Araucana. Unfortunately
this practice is still being used today by many hatcheries, which in my
opinion shows a lack of ethics since the Araucana standard has been
officially recognized by both the APA & ABA for years. And,
what is being sold in most hatcheries under the term Araucana is far
from corresponding to our recognized standard.
Working towards the acceptance of a Standard
The (ABA) American Bantam Association was the first poultry
organization in North America to recognize our Araucana in 1965. In
those days the Araucana was recognized by different categories:
Rumpless-Tufted, Rumpless-Clean-Faced, Tailed-Tufted in the following
varieties Black, White, Black Breasted Red “Wild Type as in OEG”,
Silver, Blue and Buff.
Breeders then produced what they each believed the Araucana should be.
Each had their own idea of what an “Araucana” should look like. Among
them was what became our Araucana today and what became the Ameraucana,
the bearded muffed tailed birds, but both of these were far from being
Until 1976 Year when the APA recognized the Araucana as a
breed, there were breeders specializing and developing both, the tufted
rumpless type, the Araucana as we know today, the bearded muffed and
tailed type, as well as everything in between. Great efforts were made
by a few dedicated breeders to standardize their own preferred types of
Araucana. Each group sought adoption of their own version of a type for
the Araucana breed. This set the stage for much misunderstanding and
ill-feelings, which I am glad to say is a remnant of the past for
today’s breeders. In those days all of the above types were being
advertised and shown as Araucana.
Responding to such breeding efforts and the very widespread
discontention, the APA in 1974, under the direction of Pres. John
Freeman, entered the fray in order to attempt to define just what an
Araucana was. At the 1975 APA Convention in Pomona, CA, the Araucana
breeders were invited to present their case and a “Qualifying Meet” was
set up. They were represented by a group called “Action for Araucana”.
This group presented four different proposed Standards to the APA, but
not one could be accepted because not one of the “Standards” conformed
to even one of the types presented there to be “qualified”. The Judges
then followed the only guide they had, Mr. Robinson’s 1923 description
of the Araucana. Basically the same description as what Professor
Castello had described earlierat the 1921 First World’s Poultry
Congress in Hague. The APA Standards Revision Committee was then
directed to proceed to develop a Standard for the Araucana.
In 1976, the APA accepted the description recommended by the Standard
Revision Committee, which required the Araucana to be tufted and
rumpless, similar to Dr. Bustos developed strain of Collonca de Artes,
thereafter formally disqualifying all birds which were bearded, muffed,
and tailed and everything in between. They were recognized in the
following varieties Black, White, Black Breasted Red "Cubalaya type
Wheaten", Golden Duckwing “OEG wild type" Silver Duckwing “OEG wild
In 1977 even after adoption of that Standard, the “American Araucana
Breeder’s Association” was still attempting to get acceptance of an APA
Standard that would include both tufted and bearded, rumpless and
tailed. But that organization soon folded, without success. The new
Araucana Standard clearly was adopted as a goal to be achieved in
future breeding; as no such type and varieties had yet been qualified.
Inevitably, after the adoption of the APA “Araucana” Standard in 1976,
those breeders who had been carefully breeding and improving the
bearded muffed types of Araucana were left out in the cold.
Nevertheless those bearded types were continuing to be shown, as
Araucana sometimes as American Araucana, which lead to the development
of the “AMERAUCANA” Standard.
In the 1980’s Both the APA & ABA realized that it was in the
fancies best interest that both Standards achieve the same result even
if not always using the same words. The Standard Unification Effort was
mutually agreed upon by ABA Pres. Johnny Batson & APA Pres.
Harry Halbach at Shawnee, OK. at an ABA meet. Ever since the ABA
& APA have been working towards the unification of their
standards and year after year progress is being made. In the late
1990’s under this same unification effort the Chairman of the ABA
standard committee Mr. August Vinhage proposed that the ABA adopt the
APA version standard form of one kind of Araucana. The change was voted
in and was finally reflected in the latest version of the ABA Standard
circa 1999. Today all fanciers and Araucana breeders are benefiting
from the conviction of these men to realize a common standard no matter
how unpopular at the time.
Note: A proper qualifying meet was never held by either the APA or the
ABA for the Araucana; nevertheless, the breed was accepted and
recognized by both organizations with different varieties from each
organization. The ABA did hold a qualifying meet for the Bantam
Ameraucana in 1980 and a subsequent one was held for different Bantam
Ameraucana varieties at the first combined ABA/APA national show at
Columbus, Ohio, in 1983. However, a qualifying meet was never held for
the Standard size Ameraucana. The APA adopted what both organizations
had recognized as Bantam and translated it for large fowl.
As you can see our Araucana and the Ameraucana history is so closely
intertwined that one could not be told without referring to the other.
I would like to thank the following people and Associations for their
Mr. Mike Gilbert, ABC “Ameraucana
Mr. August Vinhage, ABA “American
By Richard Collard
Further information can be send to Araucana at shaw dot ca
(Replacing the at = @ and the dot = . and leaving no space between words)