Hawaiian Feral Chickens?

[JohnLongIsland]

I was texting a friend who wised up about 10 years ago and moved from Wisconsin to Hawaii I was telling him about building my coop, and trying to secure interesting genetics. And he made a funny comment about "well, move to Hawaii--we have thousands of them". I did some reading, and learned about these feral birds. Thought to have escaped during the hurricane of 1982.

They really are some beauties. Small, pretty. Very cool stuff--that domestic birds, left to the wild, were able to secure a niche. Nature (the journal) calls the process "feralization". It is not the same as de-evolution. The birds did not revert to their wild ancestors (evolution is a one way street), but instead evolved into something new, and perfectly suited to the environment.

Are eggs available for these? (is that even legal? They are "wild" animals--but as they are not native, I would consider them "invasive", not unlike the wild pigs that also populate Hawaii).

Anyway, my friend in Kawaii tells me the roosters are super obnoxious--crowing away hours before the sun, and sometimes right on the railing outside his bedroom. I love chickens, but I suppose that would get old in a hurry. (edit--these are not my photos. I pinched them from the web)

 

[centrarchid]

I have been there and seen the chickens. At time of visit, the feral birds represented a hybrid swarm that most closely approximated American Game chickens. Population density was much higher that typical owing to extremely low rates of depredation. Limit to population size looked to me like working on hatch rate and survival through first weeks of life. Animal forages where extremely limited, likely by chickens themselves. I would like to see what average clutch size is, bet is number smaller owing to nutritional limitations.