The Calico/Aloha/Mottled Naked Neck Thread

[alohachickens]

There is quite a bit of Soeckled Sussex in the Aliha. That was one of the first breeds she used in them for sine size.
The only drawback she had was white lega( she wants yellow. Then they were adding too much mahogany and she wanted bigger splotches of white.
She wanted something similiar to this:

The Swedish Flower Hen, without the crest. Which she did add a little but of that to the mix.
The last that I heard ( read) other than NN the last she added was a Cinnamon Sussex and a Dun Sussex which acts like a Buff Columbian color. They are dive kind of dilute. She said that they are also adding size to the babies.

I too am trying to figure out how to add size to all lines of my NN.

I've thought if the Mottled Java, but according to @alohachickens the black takes over and you lose the colorful red splotches and calico look.

This photo that Draye shared (from Feathersite) is EXACTLY what I have been breeding for in Alohas.

Supposedly, these hens are "Swedish Flower" but if you have seen the Swedish that were imported by Greenfire Farms, they don't look like these at all. Back in 2008-ish when I saw this photo for the first time, I didn't know that this was not the typical Swedish Flower. I have searched for more like this and there don't seem to be a lot out there. I search for the breed name in Swedish and that helps, even though the web pages will be in another language!

Here is a link to a web site in Sweden (I guess?) that has a Swedish Flower Hen that is the type that I'm trying to duplicate in Alohas:

http://ifokus-assets.se/uploads/4d0/4d0e8fbdb344149a6b69054980d78a13/dsc-0015-2.jpg

You will notice a lot more white and no crest.

Here is another flock of Swedish, located overseas. There is a mostly white, ultra spotty hen in front. The other hens - that look primarily brown with very little white spotting - are more typical Swedish and look very much like what was imported by Greenfire Farms:

http://www.stighanefjord.com/images/Image2.jpg

Silly me, I thought that the really flashy hens with tons of white spotting were what the breed looked like in general. Turns out the mostly-white variation appears to be rare in Swedish Flower Hens.

Here is one of my "new" girls who just started laying last month, you can seen how much she looks like some of these Swedish:


I would prefer even more white, but she is only 6 months old, and Mottled hens get more white with each molt, so she will probably look like what I'm going for when she is 2 - 3 years old.

The above hen is BIG and has overall *terffic* body type! She is a really good sized hen.

Here is a hen that had the right amount of white and the right body type at age 6 months:


That's a full size (large, private breeder stock) Speckled Sussex behind her. This hen is about the size of most hatchery Sussex. (Not as large as well breed Sussex, and not as big as good private bred heritage type stock. But she is the same size as a lot of poor quality Sussex hens I've ordered from popular hatcheries, so I can't call her "small" in any way.)

She has the perfect amount of white that I'm going for. About a 50/50 mix of white and color, distributed evenly over the entire body. LOVE her and saving her eggs right now! Sooo excited to see what hatches!

 

[Kassaundra]

Beautiful (but I prefer the darker hen

)

 

[alohachickens]

Here's some hints from what I've learned (the hard way!) if you want to try and create Mottled Calico or Mille large birds:

*Anything "dark" like Speckled Sussex, Mottled Java, and Exchequer Leghorn, is going to make all of your chicks black and white, or dark brown and white. If you like black and white spotted chickens - GREAT. But if you want Mille Fluer or any cool tri-color look, you are going to be fighting that heavy pigment for several generations. So, make sure if you bring something like that into the flock, be really picky! Get the biggest, best, and most spotty that you can find. Because it's going to be a ton of work to bring the red and gold colors out again.

*It's hard to get flashy big spangles and spots. When you breed a spotted (Mottled) chicken to solid color chicken without spots, all the babies will lose their spots. If you breed those babies back to each other, or to another Mottled something, the spots will come back - but you don't see more spots than what the grandparents had. So if you take a barely-spotted Sussex and cross to a not-spotted red hen, and breed those babies together, the next generation will have spotting, but probably just a few small spots here and there. Again - the more spots you can find in the first generation of Speckled Sussex (or whatever you use) the more spots you'll get down the road.

I didn't see enough white in Java or Sussex to get what I wanted, so I looked to Exchequer Leghorns (those have a LOT more white than most Sussex.) Here is a photo of Exchequers on Feathersite so you can see what I mean:

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGK/Leghorns/ExcheqLegHens2.JPEG

I also three really cool "Mystery Hens" locally that had TONS of white. I suspect they were from "Spangled Butcher" Game lines. Here is a Spangled Butcher Game hen:

http://s450.photobucket.com/user/fo...bertSpanglebutcherhen-2.jpg.html?t=1245164540

She looks VERY much like the color on the early Aloha hens of mine. And it explains why the hens I found didn't look like "Bantam" hens. They didn't get their color from Mille D'Uccles, they got it from Game chickens!

Anyway, Exchequers and Games are really small chickens. Not really Bantam size, but pretty darn close!

I've spent the years since trying to lock in these cool color patterns, while bringing up size. It's super hard to do BTW.

*Try New Hampshire Red, Buff Sussex, or Black Tailed Buff Turkens for improving size. All three of these worked great for me.

What did not work great: Buff Orpington and Buff Rock. Both are HUGE buff chickens with buff colored tails. Yet for some reason, they seemed to resist all efforts to add spots. Don't ask me why, after beating my head against a wall trying for three years, I tried the black-tailed Buffs (Buff Coloumbian) and POOF - spots galore! So anyway, run like hell from buff with buff tails. It's really weird and I can't explain it!

If anyone wants to piggyback of my many years of battling this project, I will be selling Spotty Naked Neck eggs on Ebay later this winter and into Spring. Probably starting in December. The Calico Aloha NN's are just a random offshoot of Alohas, and I doubt I will be breeding them long-term since the majority of my customers are not into the NN thing. So start planning now! If this interests you, due to space I may have to cut down on the NN's next year. Until I get my NN pen together (limited on space and the breeder pens are holding Alohas right now) you can start looking for black tailed buff NN's and good quality spotty Speckled Sussex. Crossing those two will work great but keep in mind your first generation will be neither spotted nor buff. They would look like boring brown chickens, some with NN's. The magic wouldn't happen until the next generation! LOL.

Money from the sale of the NN eggs would go to help pay for feed on the Alohas. Will put them on Ebay later, don't worry, I'll announce it here on BYC whenever it happens.

My friend Deb in Tucson might be able to set up a pen before then. She currently has "Robin" a really spectacular Mille NN rooster, and she also has a bunch of Aloha hens. I can ask her if there are enough people are interested. Tucson post office is extra lousy, though - FYI. If anyone is passing through Tucson and could pick up eggs, that would work even better, so if you have a trucker friend that would be awesome, ha ha ha!

 

[alohachickens]

Here is one of the NN Alohas that is really heavy on Sussex breeding. You could get something like this pretty easily with black tailed buff NN's crossed with nicely spotted Speckled Sussex. Probably could get this in only two generations of breeding. Note the pink legs, pink is dominant over yellow. Sussex will give your chicks pink legs but yellow may pop up later if you use yellow legged Buff Turkens. So pay attention to the leg color on your Turkens and pick yellow if you see it.


This color is much harder to breed. You have to lighten up the Sussex mahogany and really let the Buff show!

 

[alohachickens]

Here is someone who sells Buff Sussex eggs. They are HUGE and this color really takes on Mottling. I don't have any of this bloodline so if you get some, I'd happily trade Aloha or Aloha NN eggs for some of the offspring from these. However, she never responded when I tried to buy hatching eggs. Maybe you will have better luck?

http://prairieoasispoultry.webstarts.com/

This rooster, is what I got by crossing Buff Sussex and Speckled Sussex. He's basically a Mille Sussex, but doesn't have enough white Mottling for it to really get that tri-color look. I'll be crossing him to my super spotty Alohas next month. And YES he is huge!

 

[draye]

Thanks @alohachickens for this information. It will really help this project along.

Hopefully I'll get back to working soon and can get some more of the NN eggs from you before you get out if them. I totally understand about space. I was really full up until this reader disaster took place. I'm going to try filling it up again come spring.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Here's some hints from what I've learned (the hard way!) if you want to try and create Mottled Calico or Mille large birds:

(snip)

*Try New Hampshire Red, Buff Sussex, or Black Tailed Buff Turkens for improving size. All three of these worked great for me.

@alohachickens - This is WONDERFUL - thank you so much for sharing your extensive knowledge on this. VERY helpful. I got 10 New Hampshire Reds along with my Naked Necks from Ideal with the idea to cross them to increase size, but the Naked Necks are noticeably bigger than the NHs all on their own (with the hatchery strain), so I'm not keeping any of the NHs - they're all going to the freezer. (Though I reserve the right to hold on to a pullet or two if they look good and I have room.)

Chicken Math attack - I just got 5 Speckled Sussex chicks from the local feed store (they were there, they were cute, no Post Office drama), with the hope that they can at least be bigger than the NHs and be pretty in the process. I figure I'll keep good looking pullets to have in my Naked Neck flock with my big NN roosters.

(MORE chicks in the brooder! I must be out of my mind!!!!!

)

- Ant Farm

 

[alohachickens]

From what source though? I've only seen very few SS, all hatchery stock.. to my eyes they were tall looking birds but also looked rather slender.. more of a layer type than truly dual purpose.

I got some silver sussex from non-hatchery and they were HUGE... far bigger and heavier than all the SS I've seen.. very tall but definitely nothing slender about them.

So if you want big n meaty, avoid hatchery just to be sure in case they are "layer bred" strains.

You are right about most hatchery SS not being very large. The best ones were from Meyer stock because I heard they got their hatching eggs from Gabbard farms. I got a few for the Aloha project and they were wonderful, big in size and GREAT spotting. Unfortunately, I heard Gabbard closed their doors so I don't know if that flock is still intact. Maybe check over on the Sussex thread for help.

Anyway, I saw a person here on BYC, he took Speckled Sussex hen and crossed a LIGHT SUSSEX rooster over the hens. His goal was just to improve size and improve type on the Speckled Sussex. Basically, he wanted the bodies of the show quality Light Sussex with the color of the Speckled.

A crazy thing happened when he crossed the Light Sussex / Speckled Sussex cross chicks together. He got MILLE Sussex!

You can supposedly "create" Buff using the Light Sussex color - that white with the black tail and black ring of feathers around the neck. (I say supposedly because I'm trying it now but still in progress! LOL!) So if you want to add size to Buff Turkesns, or Speckled Sussex, you can use Light Sussex. Light Sussex are MONSTERS. Boy are they huge!

I'm trying this right now. I have a BIG rooster who is part Cinnamon Sussex (Light Sussex with the black replaced with Dun) and he's in with my best Aloha hens right now!


I do not know if this rooster carries Mottling. (He might.)

So I may or may not get spots, on the babies, but for sure I will get BIG chicks that will for sure carry great spotting from the Moms. If I'm lucky I may see some spots? Maybe even nice bright Milles? But even if I don't get spots this generation, these will help bring up size crossed with my smaller super-colorful hens.

Here's one of the smaller size hens, great color, but she's not going to be huge. Not Bantam! Just not huge:


I'm trying to do something with the BIG monster guy, even though his color is all wrong, because he does have great size:


Those hens are really good size and he makes them look small.

I honestly don't know how the chicks will turn out! I haven't tried this pen before! He was hatched this Spring so he's just old enough to breed now.

This boy carries only one copy of the Silver gene. That's why he has such yellowing in his feathers already. And he has a brown spot on his chest. His tail feathers appear gray from the Dun gene. He was a huge chick who grew twice as fast as his siblings. He towered over all of them. His color is all wrong, but I want some of that fast growth and huge size in my Alohas. So here we go. Collecting eggs from this pen now and will set them soon. Going to be fun to see what we get.

I do like the Light Sussex, and the Buff Sussex, if you want NN's with Calico or Mille color and big size. Has been working great for me so far. I've seen real improvement in the Aloha quality and size since adding the Buff Sussex. Took me a long time, because Buff Sussex are rare and pretty hard to find. But I think they are worth the trouble to find them.

Two thumbs up on Buff Sussex and Light Sussex for fast growth and great size.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

You are right about most hatchery SS not being very large. The best ones were from Meyer stock because I heard they got their hatching eggs from Gabbard farms. I got a few for the Aloha project and they were wonderful, big in size and GREAT spotting. Unfortunately, I heard Gabbard closed their doors so I don't know if that flock is still intact. Maybe check over on the Sussex thread for help.

Anyway, I saw a person here on BYC, he took Speckled Sussex hen and crossed a LIGHT SUSSEX rooster over the hens. His goal was just to improve size and improve type on the Speckled Sussex. Basically, he wanted the bodies of the show quality Light Sussex with the color of the Speckled.

A crazy thing happened when he crossed the Light Sussex / Speckled Sussex cross chicks together. He got MILLE Sussex!

You can supposedly "create" Buff using the Light Sussex color - that white with the black tail and black ring of feathers around the neck. (I say supposedly because I'm trying it now but still in progress! LOL!) So if you want to add size to Buff Turkesns, or Speckled Sussex, you can use Light Sussex. Light Sussex are MONSTERS. Boy are they huge!

I'm trying this right now. I have a BIG rooster who is part Cinnamon Sussex (Light Sussex with the black replaced with Dun) and he's in with my best Aloha hens right now!


I do not know if this rooster carries Mottling. (He might.)

So I may or may not get spots, on the babies, but for sure I will get BIG chicks that will for sure carry great spotting from the Moms. If I'm lucky I may see some spots? Maybe even nice bright Milles? But even if I don't get spots this generation, these will help bring up size crossed with my smaller super-colorful hens.

Here's one of the smaller size hens, great color, but she's not going to be huge. Not Bantam! Just not huge:


I'm trying to do something with the BIG monster guy, even though his color is all wrong, because he does have great size:


Those hens are really good size and he makes them look small.

I honestly don't know how the chicks will turn out! I haven't tried this pen before! He was hatched this Spring so he's just old enough to breed now.

This boy carries only one copy of the Silver gene. That's why he has such yellowing in his feathers already. And he has a brown spot on his chest. His tail feathers appear gray from the Dun gene. He was a huge chick who grew twice as fast as his siblings. He towered over all of them. His color is all wrong, but I want some of that fast growth and huge size in my Alohas. So here we go. Collecting eggs from this pen now and will set them soon. Going to be fun to see what we get.

I do like the Light Sussex, and the Buff Sussex, if you want NN's with Calico or Mille color and big size. Has been working great for me so far. I've seen real improvement in the Aloha quality and size since adding the Buff Sussex. Took me a long time, because Buff Sussex are rare and pretty hard to find. But I think they are worth the trouble to find them.

Two thumbs up on Buff Sussex and Light Sussex for fast growth and great size.

So, I pulled the trigger on some Speckled Sussex because they were right there in the feed store.

I do like the idea of using Light Sussex over them (and then mixed in with NNs) - I may look into that. (Like I need more projects...

)

- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

I've got this young Columbian Naked Neck rooster. He does gave just a smidgen of the red leakage in his saddle feathers. I've been wondering if he would be a good match for this project.
I do have three young black tailed red pullets that are at least his half sisters. I don't like close inbreeding like that but I might try a small batch from mating them together to see if I could get anything breed able for the Aliha rooster. Of course it would most likely be a spring setting as they are just 20 weeks pm'd and haven't even started laying yet, late May hatch. I know they wouldn't be mottled as the pullets most likely don't carry mottling. The rooster might as his mother was a daughter of my Salmin rooster that carried mottling.

I also have the Mottled Partridge hen that I might could pair him with, which might be a better ideal anyway. I'm hoping she will live long enough for a couple more settings at least, she will be four this coming spring.