Painting commissioned by Cash Family Farm using our birds as models.
Painting by Amanda Stewart. Prints can be purchased at the link below.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/golden-araucana-sop-amanda-stewart.html
The duckwing in the Araucana comes in two varieties. The Silver and the Golden. On this page I will discuss the Golden Duckwing variety.
The golden duckwing rooster should have creamy yellow head, neck, shoulders, and saddle, with a silver or white wing bay.
The above rooster is showing quite a few faults and since he is mine I will share them with you. His comb is quite tall, He has black in his hackle ( Neck) and he has white in his chest and body. However there is no perfectly colored Golden Duckwing cockbird that I am aware of and I sure don’t own one and for me his good points outweigh his faults. He has correct leg color, other than the above mentioned color faults, his color is quite good. He has two beautiful large and even tufts.
As if finding a well colored golden duckwing rooster was not difficult, try finding a well colored golden duckwing hen.
I have asked quite a few judges at poultry shows the difference between golden duckwing and silver duckwing in the araucana and the answer is pretty much a shrug of the shoulders. When reading the Standard of Perfection there is a slight descriptive difference.
In essence the golden duckwing hen is to have a steel gray body, rich salmon chest, and brown primaries.
The above hen has a few faults that can be hard to notice because her tufts just reach out and grab your attention. If you look at all her feathers she has a white line down each one. That is called shafting. Also if you look closely each feather is outlined in a lighter color. This is called lacing. Both of these are faults. She also has too much black in her hackle ( neck) which I myself struggle to understand how much is too much.
A box of duckwing chicks. The chick pictured all the way to the left is a golden duckwing. The others all have colors issues that will show up in adult hood with the exception of the very heavily stripped chick in the right hand corner. It is a silver duckwing. Both silver and golden duckwing chick down should have well defined markings with no interruptions such as can be seen in the other chicks.