Orange Mottled Chicken!

[alohachickens]

Quote:
Like digit! Also, is there any chance that any of the people involved in this could ship eggs to NY?

Yes, anyone who is interested in joining the project is welcome.

Tamra was shipped live chicks in March; her flock should be laying in September.

Laree on here, I gave her my gorgeous new roo, "Punkin" along with a select group of very NICE hens. Punkin will be put with the half Sussex, half Aloha hen seen in previous post; he will also be put with a pure Sussex with good mottling (the mother of the Sussex/Aloha hen shown) and also he will be with two other Aloha hens with great color. That's only a few hens, and we are going to get very few eggs here because of the heat. But, Laree said that she would be willing to ship eggs at a nominal cost to anyone who wants to try. Contact her for info.

Two other locals have young stock that should be ready to lay in November. Hopefully I can get both of them to join BYC and post photos. They each are going to have BIG flocks of Alohas to work with.

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
I really like the number of points on this guys comb.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

Still haven't gotten around to taking mug shots and weighing everybody. I was going to do it today, but it has been RAINING all day, and plans to rain tomorrow too! My garden is happy, but I will have to wait on new pics. So despite having no new ones, I still have tons I haven's shared yet, so I figured why not post MORE PICS! Here's some I took at the same time as the last few batches:

Here's me and "Blackbeak Larry" (Don't let her piratey name fool you, this little pullet is the diva of the flock!)

A closeup of Digit (another pullet whose name will change when the 7 year old who claimed her settles on a new one)

Calli:

Some of my bigger, plainer girls:

 

[aubreynoramarie]

I'd buy one! Wish I was in AZ!

 

[LarryPQ]

Awww...you aren't that far. Certainly a day trip down, or maybe I can send some up the next time the boys go to Vegas!

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

I finally took mug shots of everyone!
I discovered that my chickens are not a fan of picture day. Or being stuffed into a box to be put on our kitchen scale! They really hated the whole process, so it was hard to find pics where you can see their colors and the chickens don't look stressed. They move so fast and they were panting and unhappy... I am not doing this again for a LONG while. I will probbly do it for my chicks, but I am seriously thinking of putting them in a large terrarium so they can't dive off the table.
So here, at last, are the pics and weights of 24 of the chicks I got from alohachickens- number 25 was killed by a... something... likely a rat, while still young enough I don't know what gender it was. It was red with some black spots. But here's the rest; good, bad, and indifferent. Boys are listed first (13 of them!) then (only 11) girls. The number cards were so I could organize pics easily and keep the weights in a neat list. Peach's pic is an old one cuz the butt-head jumped off the scale and hid in the coop so we couldn't take any new pics of him.

Cuckoo- 1.28 kg

Stripes- .956 kg

Fox- 1.97 kg

Wings- 1.253 kg

Condor- 1.161 kg

Little Bluetail- .858 kg

Xerxes- .818 kg

Peach- 1.25 kg

Big Bluetail- 1.29 kg

Ra- .938 kg

Buttercup- 1.17 kg

Nameless- 1.064 kg

Easter- 1.064 kg

Blackbeak Larry- .856 kg

Digit- .787 kg

Snowflake- .843 kg

Sprinkles- .748kg

Puffy- .84 kg

Calli- .927 kg

Flecks- .897 kg

Goldy- .96 kg

Ellipses- 1.139 kg

Dottie- .921 kg

Joan- .829 kg

Of course, I have tons more pics of them (some more than others) So let me know if you want to see any more.

 

[RareBreedFancier]

Wow! Those are some beautiful birds!

If your wanting to increase size, Fox at 1.97 kg is nearly a whole kg heavier than the next biggest roos so he's a clear winner there! How many roos are you looking at keeping? I'd pick Fox, Peach, Nameless and Easter. Fox for weight, Peach for color and weight, Nameless for stunning color and Easter 'cause although I like Nameless color better I'm loving those cute muffs.

I'd keep all the pullets too but that's just me, room isn't a problem here.

There has been a few comments on sex links introducing white. I will post some pics of my young birds from sex link hens so you can all see what they look like. A dose of Dominant white actually produces beautiful gold and white babies.

It's night here now but I should be able to take some pics in the morning. It would also give buff and white, removing the black completely. Recessive white would be the one to avoid, it will hide and produce solid white birds down the track. I'm not a fan of solid white birds as the local eagle treats them as fast food.

Mottled birds hide much better and look much prettier to me.

 

[lauralou]

Ooh, Nameless is gorgeous!


(Back to my usual lurking...)

 

[alohachickens]

I love this scientific approach! Really awesome!

Hmm, there are several good choices here . . . .

Looks like the solid hens are not any larger than the colorful hens? So if you must cull some stock, you could let those go. Along with Cuckoo and ALL of the smaller-sized, solid-color roos, like Xerxes and Wings, there are still lots of colorful choices in that same size range. And of course it will help body type when you bring in some big hens of some "other" outside breed like NHR, Buff Orp, Speckled Sussex or whatnot. So you'll want a colorful roo for those hen crosses, and a big roo that can be less colorful to mix with your little colorful hens.

I am totally feeling the need for some larger birds in my stock - Speckled Sussex, Buff Orp, Buff Rock. So I'm going back to working on body type on the Aloha project in the next year. I will lose the fun colors, but I know this improvement of type is critical. Even if it's not as FUN as working on colors! LOL! Let me know if you are interested in some new chicks next spring, from my larger sized birds I'm raising now, I have a roo here who is solid gold and MONSTER sized!

Here he is:

I found ONE little white fleck on ONE single wing feather on this guy, LOL. I am hoping that means he carries mottling, even though the odds of him being a Mottled carrier are just 25%. His pedigree is half Buff Rock, 1/4 New Hampshire Red, and 1/4 Aloha. He is SO HUGE. At four months, he and his brother (I'm keeping his brother for a while as a backup - although I have not found any trace of white on the brother) are both way bigger than any adult hen in my coop.

Laree set me up with some pure speckled sussex:

I will have to try a pure Sussex hen under this rooster as well!

And here's a look at my babies again, they are changing every day:

My FAVORITE chick pic:

Awwww, so cute!


Geez, Tamra, this is going to be really TOUGH to choose who to keep? Fox is bigger, but does he show mottling? Because Big Bluetail DOES show mottling, right? But not Fox? I do love Big Bluetail's body type and head, really solid looking. I also like Easter for his color, and Buttercup - his comb is weird, but his color is neat, and he is not that small. I wonder what Buttercup would produce when crossed with pure Speckled Sussex hens. And, I wonder if you crossed Easter with a bright gold hen, like a Buff Orp, if that would give you some bright gold color carrier hens?

I don't envy you having to cull through . . . . I see two baby roos in my own batch I might HAVE to grow out, too, even though they won't be huge. The orange polka dotted one, and this other that is vibrant red patched with white, his red just GLOWS. Oh, and then I have a third chick from an even younger batch still in the brooder, that is just starting to feather out - he is about twice as big as the other babies, is bright light gold, and looks like he might be MOTTLED. Trying not to get too excited - but if he's a BIG buff mottled roo, WHOO-HOO! That would do TONS to improve the program! So far I don't see a speck of black on him - just gold and white, it's neat! But he's still young. I'll try to get a photo . . .

I also hatched out some Sussex/Aloha crosses. There were a few pure Sussex in there, too. One of the chicks is almost as big as the pure Sussex, but is bright gold with chipmunk stripes, instead of the normal Sussex brown! It is 1/4 Aloha, and 3/4 "big chicken" breeds. If it mottles out with full color - could be awesome! Its mother was an Aloha/Buff Orp cross, and dad a pure Sussex, so there is a 50/50 shot it will display mottling, and since the dad is a pure Sussex roo, that means 100% odds of it being a mottled gene carrier. As big as it is already, it will probably be good for the program regardless of gender . . . .

Anyway, I also am keeping Monster-Roo, and a pure Sussex roo, so if I also keep the other babies, that will be five roosters . . . . with only two breeding pens right now, not sure how that is going to work? LOL!

Will have to figure something out, ha ha!

 

[LarryPQ]

Here are some shots of Punkin'. He's a model, if you know what I mean....