Ameraucanas are much loved as pets and for their blue eggs. The commercial “Ameraucanas” are usually a mixed up group of chickens that lay eggs of assorted colors. They are sexed at the hatcheries with about 90% success. The other option are the “standard bred Ameraucanas”. These are a true breed with show standards and have a large following with breeders who show, or just appreciate their unique qualities:
- Great personalities
- Blue eggs – always, not sometimes
- Pea combs for winter hardiness
- Beards
- Muffs
- Dark legs
Sounds perfect, right? There are very few drawbacks to this breed, but 2 that I wanted to address when making the PA Blue Eggers. First, standard bred Ameraucanas are bred mostly for their looks and personality in shows, not for high egg production. My standard bred lines were terrific layers for at few months in the spring, but for most of the year I would get no eggs at all. The second issue, even more important, is that they take a very long time to grow enough to be sexable. A breeder can certainly not sex them at hatch.
The PA Blue Eggers fix both of these issues. They are very high production layers, likely the most productive blue egg layers that exist anywhere, thanks to the hybrid vigor they possess. They are also genetically black sexlinks, meaning that every male chick has barring on their feathers and the females are completely black. You can see this in a white head spot at hatch, or even more accurately, by white tips on their primary wing feathers that sprout when just a few days old.
We are bringing this hybrid back after several years of focusing on Legbars for high production of blue eggs. Hybrids have some distinct advantages when it comes to productivity. No chickens on the planet can match the commercial hybrids that produce the white and brown eggs you buy in the grocery store. But how boring are those eggs? I tried several different crosses to make a black sexlink that lays blue eggs, and this current cross is the best I found. The hens look like Black Ameraucanas, with dark legs and those cute muffs and beards we all adore on the Ameraucanas and many Easter Eggers. Their feathers are jet black and shimmer in the sunlight with green and purple iridescence. A truly pretty bird compared to the “normal” red and black sexlinks.
But what really sets these apart from the other blue egg layers we offer is their productivity. Their mothers are California Greys, a breed that Privett Hatchery calls their “best white egg layer that are not primarily white”. And they have proven to be great layers (of those rather boring white eggs). When bred to a black Ameraucana rooster, the resulting chicks are sexlinked (males have a white head spot and barred feathers, females are pure black except for some juvenile white feathers they lose as they grow). The resulting pullets lay as well as their mothers, but pick up the blue egg color from their dad. Really the best of both breeds comes out in this hybrid.
These also seem to pick up a little studied gene from their mothers that removes any trace of brown from the eggs. This is how the white eggs in the store get such a pure white color. It has been a few years since we raised these for egg production, but I recall the eggs being a lighter, but purer blue than the Legbars and Ameraucanas. This may be from the mystery gene, or because the blue egg gene, while dominant, has a “dose effect” and with only 1 copy the eggs don’t get as dark blue. I thought of calling these “Pennsylvania Sky Blue Eggers” but want to get more data about the actual egg colors this year, so as not to oversell that.
New for 2026 !!
I am experimenting with a new hybrid this year, a cuckoo (white striped) version of the PA Blue Eggers. Instead of a Black Ameraucana for a father, I am using a Legbar as the male parent. The main advantage here is that the Legbars are genetically much higher egg production than the Black Ameraucanas. I am hoping this will add to the productivity of these hens. They will not look like Ameraucanas (a big advantage of the “classic” PA blue eggers) but are likely to have a small crest from the Legbars.
I would love to see some customer buy some of both these varieties and raise them together to give me feedback about them. The eggs should be similar enough that it may be hard to compare productivity.