The Calico/Aloha/Mottled Naked Neck Thread

[draye]

Here a couple of pictures of the Mottled and Calico/Aloha Naked Necked chicks that hatched 3/24 and 3/25, 2016

These 3 are from the Red Mottled NN rooster over the Mottled Partridge hen.

These 3 photos are from the Spangled Aloha rooster over the 3 Red and 2 Barred hens. I messed up my count on how many there were. I'll get a count on the next update.

 

[alohachickens]

Well, the down side is that, so far, the boys are really big fighters at only 5 weeks (including trying to actually land hits, not just posturing and chest bumping). Indeed, the big dark boy is starting to look like a bit of a bully and chases the older bigger CL boys around. Enough so that I may not have the option of choosing keepers based on coloring/size...

There have been mixed reports on the NN boys.

Positive side: The actual NN rooster that I put in there (daddy to the big chick most likely) was not at all aggressive. Neither is a 3 month old NN chick with other chicks.

Bad news: Lots of feather picking in the first batch of teens. Not all the way to cannibalism but close.

And a couple of last year's NN roos were extremely aggressive towards humans. One of the things I liked about the big NN rooster that I put with the NN hens, is that he took after the mild Speckled Sussex roos temperament. The babies, however, have more pure NN bloodline, and may revert back to the aggression seen in previous NN boys. Sorry to say that . . ..

Alohas can be very "feisty" and put on a good show, but fights that actually harm other boys are extremely rare. So they are gamey but not mean, if that makes sense?

 

[alohachickens]

I have something fun to share!

It's the first DUN MOTTLED NN!




Check out this cute thing!

Okay, I actually know his pedigree! Because of who was in the pen when.

His Mom:


Mom is half Sussex. Her Mom was a Buff Sussex / Dun Light Sussex (aka "Cinnamon Sussex") cross.

Here is HER mom - the NN chick's GRANDMA:


VERY large hen. This is proportionally 25% of the new NN chick's DNA.

Here is the chicks GRANDPA:

This is 25% of the chick's DNA.

This rooster - the NN's Grandpa - is the SON of my Blue Eyed Hen. So this is the chick's great g-ma who sadly died in the 117 degree heat last June:

This hen was at least half Swedish Flower and the rest Aloha.

On the other side of the pedigree - would be the big NN rooster most likely - the one that looks Sussex:



So here's Gpa on the other side:

See how this big boy's leg is out funny? He only bred a few hens before he broke his leg. They perch very high and this boy was so massive, his jump from the perch broke it. I


Mom to this rooster would have been either the buff NN hen, but most likely one of her daughters - who would have been out of the above pen. So this photo is probably his great g-ma and great g-pa

So you can see in this one page pretty much all the "ingredients" that went into this Dun NN chick!

 

[alohachickens]

Also interesting is the very unique feather color showing on this boy. Legs are wrong color for my Aloha program. But the neighbor that I gave all the NN chicks to, she liked this guy a lot, so will give him to her later:

 

[alohachickens]

Here is a cute chick I'm raising who is from the same eggs that I sent Fire Ant Farm. Hoping for hen.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Here is a cute chick I'm raising who is from the same eggs that I sent Fire Ant Farm. Hoping for hen.

She looks almost exactly like my Greta. I am behind on photos - It's not all the chicks' fault, I haven't had the chance to organize the photos I have. But my kids look a lot like these...

My other NNs are well behaved and friendly, so I was surprised at the tussling with these boys. I'm hoping they will settle down. Here's hoping no one is human aggressive, as that won't really fly here. I will culling most or all of the Cream Legbar boys in this group in several weeks, and they are maturing early (crowed at 3 weeks, and one tried to mount a pullet yesterday at 6 weeks) - it could be that that is a trigger. We will see how they do after the change...

- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

Well the Aloha rooster that I have, I think is a lot of Leghorn and original Banty bloodlines. Possibly some New Hampshire. His shape is a lot like the Leghorn though but slightly bigger than a Leghorn rooster. I don't think he can fro. The NN lines at all.

All this to say he has become aggressive toward some humans. He's jump at my SIL twice and yesterday a young boy came running by his pen and he jumped at the wire and that us the only thing that prevented him from actually attacking the boy. So the ingredients are there for aggression.

I'm happy to say that he has never offered to jump in me. I'm guessing that maybe because I raised him and taken care of him his whole life.

 

[alohachickens]

Well the Aloha rooster that I have, I think is a lot of Leghorn and original Banty bloodlines. Possibly some New Hampshire. His shape is a lot like the Leghorn though but slightly bigger than a Leghorn rooster. I don't think he can fro. The NN lines at all.

All this to say he has become aggressive toward some humans. He's jump at my SIL twice and yesterday a young boy came running by his pen and he jumped at the wire and that us the only thing that prevented him from actually attacking the boy. So the ingredients are there for aggression.

I'm happy to say that he has never offered to jump in me. I'm guessing that maybe because I raised him and taken care of him his whole life.

The NN roosters have been a source of human aggression in two cases. The base stock NN bloodline is from Privett Hatchery, NM. I had one last year that was given away because he was persistently aggressive. Remember the one used in this pen was not. So each boy is different.

The "regular" Alohas here - aggression towards humans or other roosters is very rare. Right now I have four Aloha roosters (no NN blood) living together in the barn. Previously five. Alohas are gamey and do a lot of puffing and show but tend to back down fast if you hold your ground. Alohas are mostly posers trying to look tough for the ladies with little to back it up in other words. When they get into a fight, I love to watch, because there is fluffing and jumping and yet they rarely lose a feather. It's like humane cockfighting. LOL. More like the chicken version of professional wrestling. Looks amazing but they walk away unhurt. It is about order not causing injury.

The lowest ranking get chased a lot (but not injured) and the two top roosters got into it pretty bad about a month ago. No cuts but lots of wrestling with each other, like locking necks together and chest bumping kind of stuff. Unfortunately, Thing 1 (my fave Aloha / Buff Sussex cross) pulled a leg muscle or tendon. Giving him a chance to try and heal in another pen. So they were not "out for blood" but would not STOP messing with each other for days! It was like guys - give it a rest already!

There was one Aloha years ago who was human aggressive (replaced as soon as I could) but the most human aggressive was strangely the pure Swedish, but I think that was his handling. He was raised by kids and not afraid of humans.

All five Aloha roosters in the barn have been totally ignoring me for the last year.

The NN rooster down in Tucson is obnoxiously aggressive, from what I've heard. Again - hand raised. I recommend less human interaction for roosters. Need them to be a little wary of people so they give a bit of respect. Remind them that they taste like chicken if that helps. LOL!

 

[Phill98]

@alohachickens that dun cockerel is beautiful! So when I was on your page, I saw that dun is blue with brownish tone but the reason ithat you got them is that it doesn't throw splash. (Correct me if I am wrong, I want to know this, lol). I wonder if it is dominant or recessive gene.
Also that boy has lot of white. Hope that he keeps it.

And I never said this and never seen that anyone said this but the name that you choose fits perfectly with what you are trying to achieve. When somebody says aloha chickens, I see in my head bird that has lots and lots of white, not ones with small dots.

 

[alohachickens]

@alohachickens that dun cockerel is beautiful! So when I was on your page, I saw that dun is blue with brownish tone but the reason ithat you got them is that it doesn't throw splash. (Correct me if I am wrong, I want to know this, lol). I wonder if it is dominant or recessive gene.
Also that boy has lot of white. Hope that he keeps it.

Yes that's it exactly! I see a lot of Swedish that appear to have tons of white spotting, but it seems to be more on chickens with Blue - so I think it's just Splash + Mottling. The "true" white spotting seems to be often less than many Speckled Sussex would have. So using Dun should be a way to get that "pastel" look to Alohas without worrying about Splash.

Two copies of Dun makes Khaki, (which is the Dun equivalent to Splash) and the color is *exactly* what it sounds like. Very hard to find photos, but here are a couple:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ca/79/ba/ca79ba82881f8f06af3036ad6c3419e5.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3c/d8/0d/3cd80dadb1dcf52606b35eea3a3792bb.jpg

"Khaki" is like a cool toned beige, less yellow than Buff. I have NO IDEA how this is going to look when it appears on Alohas! It should start to show up as early as . . . now?

That's because I have one hen here, who is an escape artist. I want to keep her in the main coop but she found a hole in the bird netting, none of the other Alohas spotted it, and she gets out every time. Until I can fix it, she is stuck in the breeder pens. "Escape Artist Hen" is Mom of the Mottled Dun NN chick. That's *why* she was in there! Stinker. Now she's next door with the Dun Light Sussex rooster, which means 1/4 of their offspring will display Khaki.

Here she is, again:


And now she is in with THIS guy:

Because I don't really have any other place to put her at the moment. The odds of getting anything good for Aloha program out of this cross are slim, although the odds of getting a nice, big, well formed chicken in general are very high. Rooster is at least half Sussex - more likely 3/4 Sussex - and hen is half Buff Sussex - so chicks from the pair will be nice and big. Though they will probably not be spotted (only 1 out of 5 of this boy' chicks have turned out Spotted so far out of spotted hen, and she only CARRIES spotting, which means statistically I think only 1 out of about 10 of the chicks between these two might end up Mottled?)

Anyway, I will probably just sell off all the extra chicks from this cross, as they will be fabulous mutt chickens, very big and robust good layers regardless of color! At least half of the chicks will carry the gene for spots, at least, so getting future spotty chicks from their offspring is possible, if someone keeps a spotted rooster to pair with them.