The Aloha Chicken Project

[draye]

HI from Greece

! Have some pictures of my mottled greek chicken both black and brown . They are resilient birds 3-4 kgrs , excellent broodies


and egg layers !

Are those topknots on the brown ones? If so can you get a close up picture of one?

 

[nikoth]

Hi again ! Yes, they are ! I'll make some extra photos tommorow

 

[nikoth]

 

[draye]

Cool.
Thanks for the pictures.

 

[alohachickens]

Neat pics of the Greek chickens! Thanks for sharing those!

 

[alohachickens]

I have to agree, that is one yummy tail on him!

I have two that I hatched (my hatch rates are really dismal) one of which is a roo, at about 8 weeks he has a bright red comb already. He also has blue/grey legs with feathered feet

I have one large looking possible hen that is 3 weeks younger. She is already larger than he is so I am pleased! I'll get pictures once they lose their ratty betwixt chick/juvenile feathering. She looks to orange/pumpkin coloured with white spots.

Feathered legs? What happened there??? Crazy!

So have you been incubating with a 'bator, or putting eggs under a broody so far to try and hatch? How many eggs did you start with to get two chicks?

 

[alohachickens]

Just took a bunch of new photos. Will have to do several updates.

First Update: Late October Chicks. Set "Breeding Pen" with two SONS OF CHEETO (Dragon & #3) who carry mottling, but pretty much appear solid.

Photos of PARENTS TO CHICKS:






Colorful Hens + "solid looking" roos with Buff Rock breeding.

Here are the chicks, now over one month old:






These two photos show most of the chicks. (A few were out of camera range.) Many are now showing color. In fact, about 80% are showing some trace of white, somewhere. However, due to ever increasing feed bills, I will probably cull about one third to one half of these and concentrate on raising the ones with more visible white.

Here are photos of a few of the more promising babies:









This photo showing three of the chicks, including a very solid one, which is what I'd cull out:




I raised a previous batch of chicks, and was hoping the ones with little white would show more after a while, but it became apparent that the white was not increasing at all. I just re-homed those ones yesterday. I am going through so much feed right now, and with many chicks to deal with, there hasn't been extra room or feed for a ton of "maybes".

I have another group of chicks from this exact same breeder pen, that are growing up right behind these! So total number hatched from this pen was about 50 chicks. I'll keep and raise the most promising "top half" of this class, and see how they develop.

They are grand-chicks of Cheeto, who was a robust 1/2 Buff Rock, 1/4 NHR, 1/4 Aloha rooster. So far, these chicks have been healthy, robust, round, meaty, and full of vigor. All that hatched healthy have survived to date. No leg issues, etc. Good news for possible outcrosses to Swedish bloodlines, as these contain NO Swedish Flower blood. Size is OK. Bigger than regular Alohas, but not huge. These are now mostly Aloha blood anyway - at least half Aloha breeding.

Big question is, will any keep the color? So far these have experienced a color fade out at about four months. Note: Same thing happens with Pure Swedish, too.

 

[alohachickens]

For those of you new to this thread, this is their DADDY, "Cheeto" a huge-bodied 1/2 Buff Rock roo who carried the gene for spots:








These big-bodied roos are being put in with my small but most colorful hens. Both of these roos carry the gene for spots and you can see a stray spotted feather tip here and there. It is hoped that when they are put in with these super-colorful hens, that hopefully some of the babies will be fully spotted from head to toe. The dads would help improve body shape and size, and the boys both have yellow legs, whereas all but one of the hens have either pink or mixed gray legs.

So these chicks would still be kind of small, because their dads are actually about 2/3rds Aloha and only about 1/3 "big chicken" which means the babies from this mix will be only about 1/6th "big chicken" and the rest little Aloha blood. But they should have better body type, with wider chests, and possibly yellow legs. If they end up improved and super colorful, that's still a step in the right direction!

Look at how stout the roos are compared to the hens:




The above photo also shows the itty-bitty white spots on the chest of #3. Can you see them? They are faint, but they are there.

I just set 30 (!!!) eggs from this pen last night. I'm SO hoping the eggs are fertile! But I'm worried since I don't see a lot of "action" happening in that pen.

Going to drive me crazy, waiting a week to candle these eggs for fertility! ARRRGH!

I'm re-posting this older post to show y'all a better set of pics of the roos/hens of the five week old chick batch . . .. I currently have about 50 chicks from this pen. Derek also got some eggs from this pen when my 'bator was full. The roos have been sold, pen is broke up, so whatever we get is "it" from this bloodline!

 

[alohachickens]

Update on the "random hatch" eggs.

How/why I hatched these:

I bought some eggs on Ebay, large fowl that carried the "Dun" gene. You know how it can go with shipped eggs, though. Sometimes you get ONE egg to hatch.

I didn't want to have to raise only a couple chicks - they can't huddle for warmth, etc. So I grabbed a random pile of eggs from my hens. Pens were a disaster at that moment - various roos running around with all the hens, so who knows who these chicks came from? Your guess is as good as mine!

SO - six chicks from the shipped eggs hatched, YAY. Then I got about 15 of my Alohas.

I culled one round of Alohas and held back seven of the chicks. (About half.) Culled the "outside" chicks that did not carry Dun gene. Culled the Alohas one more time yesterday.

This is what I'm left with after all that culling. Seven chicks total from about 20+ hatched.








The HUGE ones are "Cinnamon Sussex" which is a program by another BYC'er on here to create a Light Sussex but with a Dun neck and tail. That roo is HUGE! So, I'm going to try and cross these with some pure Speckled Sussex and attempt to *first* just breed a Speckled Sussex but replace black with dun. (That's why I picked up the three pure Sussex chicks just recently!)

Then, if I can get a Dun Speckled Sussex, I'd like to cross that with the Alohas and bring the size in (from this guy!) in addition to the Dun. Will be something new, that's for sure!

These pure Cinnamon Sussex, they are pretty neat. Only need them for one generation, will see if I can sell the trio together to some nice local BYC'er when I'm done.

Anyway, in addition to adding the Dun gene, I bet we'll see a ton of size improvement with this line!

 

[alohachickens]

Okay, here's my favorite "surprise" from the random Alohas. Not sure who the parents are, but her nice size and her "downward" tail (lack of Aloha fantail) kind of suggest Swedish Flower to me, either via Mom or the Swedish rooster. But I don't quite think she's a purebred Swede. Not positive? She could be, I guess? Who knows! Anyway, she's big and beautiful and spotty!!! I like to pick her up, she's so cute.






She is pretty much as big as the smaller Cinnamon Sussex hen.