Orange Mottled Chicken!

[alohachickens]

Yeah what RareBreedFancier said, LOL.

Keep a non-barred roo whenever possible, and as long as some of your hens are solid and some are barred, it will be fine. Just don't breed barred x barred or it will become homozygous and kind of take over. The barred mottled are quite pretty! I just want a bit of all of the colors!

Kind of hard to evaluate the exact colors in these pics, though they are great for judging size and form. The biggest two have the NHR blood and not a lot of color. I do like their form, the big combs, the heavy bodies, that is more of the goal "shape" and size of the finished Alohas. A lot of the most colorful have a thin or "gamey" appearance.

This would make sense because while the original odd Banty hen that I used to start this project, she didn't look at all like a Game hen, the South Phoenix neighborhood that I found her in is filled with game stock. (I know some folks are definately doing illegal cockfighting still down here, AZ was of the last states to ban it, only a few years ago I think?) There is a farm a few miles from my house with 50 roosters tied to little huts. (Tell me that's not for fighting, LOL!) Anyway, I think that is where some of the mottled coloration is coming from.

Thankfully, Alohas are NOT aggressive. However, they are clever escape artists and very tricky little fliers, as you've discovered! They are also AMAZINGLY hardy. My friend and I have both noticed this, as time and time again, if there is excessive heat, or an illness that runs through, the Alohas will always be the last ones standing. This is really a positive thing being as I want these to be really practical AND pretty . . . .

 

[alohachickens]

Cull Wings, (too dark) and Cuckoo, and Stripes I think . . . their barring is the most pronounced. I think.

Big Bluetail - I think I see a few flecks on him? If so, he's a good one for hens with excessive white on them, (you don't have any of those yet, I have some with too much white.) He might cross well with your later half Sussex, half Aloha hens. But that would mean hanging onto him for a while, don't know if that will be possible.

Peach - his color is not that impressive, but he looks a lot like my foundation rooster "Vanilla" who threw TONS of color for me! So he might throw better than he is? Hard to say.

Need better pics of "Condor" to decide on him . . . but if the other one is a biter and they look pretty much the same, you'll obviously want the one with a nicer personality. Can't see much color on him in these particular photos.

You'll need one super-colorful roo to keep, I'm thinking "Nameless" could be your best shot. Sure, he has some barring, but obviously not as much as Cuckoo and Stripes. I think "Nameless" would be the one to toss in with solid (non barred) hens, like Buff Orps and New Hapshire Reds. You'll want some super-colorful and flashy genes hiding behind those crosses!

Was "Buttercup" one with much lighter color? These pics are kind of dark . . . if Buttercup is lighter in color, would be a great cross with Speckled Sussex hens! They'd get the size from the moms, but he could lighten the Mahogany color and remove some of the black, maybe??

In a nutshell - put most or all of your Aloha keeper HENS in with the Sussex roo. The resulting babies will "pretty much" look like Speckled Sussex in the first generation! That Mahogany color is going to totally take over. You're going to probably end up with a pen of what look like really poor quality Sussex, ha ha. But keep some of those babies to grow out, they will ALL carry colors and will be bigger.

Meanwhile, you'll need to introduce some "other" (non-mahogany) colors into the flock. If you were to ONLY use the Speckled Sussex as the only "big chicken" outcross, the more of their bloodline you bring in to up the size, the more that mahogany and black color will dominate, and you won't see any of these bright reds or golds any more. You'd just have a pen of what look like funky-looking Speckled Sussex. LOL. So you have to bring in some other stuff - the brightest reds and golds you can find to counteract the mahagany and black. Take your most colorful little roo and put him in with some big old hens with lots of light, bright colors.

I'd suggest taking Buff Orp or Buff Rock hens, plus some New Hampshire Red hens, and put your most colorful little rooster in there with them. The babies will all look solid brown or tan. But they will carry the colors behind them. Cross those with the half-sussex, half Alohas from the other pen. The resulting chicks would be half Aloha, and half big chicken, and should be full size. (But the "big chicken" part won't be all Speckled Sussex.) At that point the colors should start to reappear, and then it will just take time to select the best size and brightest patterns out of each generation. However, the size issue should be fixed, and they should start looking more hefty and rounded than the "gamey" ones we have now.

Big Important Note: Put your little colorful roo(s) in with ONLY the big hens. I had issues this last year, the eggs from my biggest hens (the eggs I really needed to hatch) were all INFERTILE. Arrrgh! The reason was, my littler Aloha rooster was able to choose from so many hens, and the little Aloha hens were easy to mount! So he would simply ignore the large hens! When I try the small roo/big hen approach again, which I'm sure I will in the future, I'm penning the small guy exclusively with just a few (maybe three or four) bigger hens, and that's it! So he'll have the energy and the motivation to "do the deed". Ha ha!!!

 

[knjinnm]

Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex :

So anyone have suggestions about which 3 boys make the cut? I am keeping 2 and giving one to my new chicken partner, along with one of my speckled sussex roos.

Hi,
I would keep Stripes, Nameless and give Easter to your chicken partner.
As I mentioned before 7/07/2011 I would start thinking about leg color because waiting to decide leg color could be an obstacle if you have to introduce new blood after you have the feather color set.

Fun project​

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

As requested, rooster color pics! I had a heck of a time getting the boys to stand in the sunshine-Its hot out today!
Here's Big Bluetail, my macho rooster

My only mottled and not barred boys, Buttercup and Xerxes

A side by side of Nameless and Easter

From left: Easter, Buttercup, Xerxes, and Condor

I hope that helps! So many rich, beautiful colors... They look so pretty in the sunshine. It was a lot easier to get pics of them with the boys penned separately.

The girls are out with my big flock and the younger sussex and buff orps (I will have 5 SS hens and 6 BO hens helping me with size, plus a sussex roo) Are there any Pullets I should rehome/not use? I will be sharing a few of my hens with a new recruit, so we need to divide the 11 of them between us so we both have good size and color (I'm thinking of letting him take Calli, Elipses, Sprinkles, and Snowflake) but I have gotten attached to Blackbeak, Digit, Goldy, and Puffy. That leaves Flecks, Dottie, and Joan as undecided. Flecks is kinda dark, but every day she has more white spots so now you can hardly tell her hackles are mostly black. I might keep her too. I could then give Dottie to Matt and rehome Joan. Each of us would then have 5 with a range of size and color. We plan to share chicks/eggs from the birds we end up with anyway. I just want to make sure all the girls are okay.

I want to get craigslist ads up soon to rehome all the pullets I don't want to keep.

 

[draye]

Anybody have more Orange Mottled Chickens?
I have an addiction to them, as long as they belong to someone else right now, (Got too many chickens myself right now). I just love looking at the mottling on these chicks.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

LOL. You've seen everybody I have. If I could upload more than one pic at a time, I would post way more pics... I have taken hundreds!

 

[alohachickens]

Well, my "free" web page at Webs.com has run out of room - says I'll have to start paying if I want any more pages. BUMMER! I hate to remove all the history pages on there, but don't want to pay for a new page, either. Maybe it's time for an Aloha blog of some sort?

Anyway, I have a bunch of new babies growing up, they look a lot like Tamra's which is hardly surprising since we're working with the same stock. Mine are getting outcrossed this year for size. I have a GIANT rooster that is 1/4 Aloha, 1/4 New Hampshire Red, and 1/2 Buff Rock. (Buff ROCK, not Buff Orp. HUGE!!)

Now, keep in mind, he doesn't show any spots. However, I did find one teeny white tip on one single feather on him. I am hoping against hope that this means he carries the spots from his Aloha grandmother.

However, for all of those who have been asking "What kind of body type" and leg color and comb, etc, that I'm breeding for - THIS IS IT. If I had to get super nitpicky, I'd like a longer tail. Hopefully as he's crossed with more Aloha and Speckled Sussex, that will come in. But in a nutshell, if you wanted to know what an Aloha Chicken goal would look like, take this and add spots:

Here he is shown with some of the lovely ladies:

I called him "Cheeto" because he's so orange! He's a monster sized guy, too, almost twice as big as the little hens. Wow!

 

[alohachickens]

Here are some of the photos of the small spotted girls and boys. Aren't they pretty? I'm really getting the most AWESOME colors, but bummer abou the small size issue. To try and fix that, two breeding pens will be getting set up, starting in October.

I'm taking the lightest, most golden hens, and will be crossing those with a lovely Speckled Sussex roo. Will hatch out and keep some of those babies.

The above giant orangey rooster (Cheeto) will also be crossed with some of these other colorful hens.

Then the two groups (the half Sussex babies, and the half Cheeto babies) will be crossed together. The result will be chicks that are half "big chicken" and half "little Aloha chicken". Hopefully, the result will be the first generation of very colorful, FULL SIZED Alohas late spring/early summer 2012.

In the meantime, enjoy the pretty colors from the little guys! NONE of these are "repeats" - these are all different birds in each photo.

 

[alohachickens]

Oh, I forgot to mention, the above photos of the little colorful ones, they aren't full grown yet. Age is from four to five months old. Some have not filled out yet. This hen is mature, she's one of the "keeper" hens from last year that will be bred to Cheeto. But most of these in the photos still have a lot of growing to do in the next month. None of the ones shown above have begun to lay.

This is what the hens here should mature to look like, in terms of body shape and size:

 

[becky3086]

How nice to see an update of this project. Looks like things are really going well. I really like the rooster in the picture above this one. Some of your hens are most definitely red or orange mottled though some still have the mille fleur look. Very well done, I would love to get some eggs from you sometime.