Orange Mottled Chicken!

[alohachickens]

I just LOVE how Punkin glows in the sunlight!

He looks a lot like Tamra's hen "Puffy", I think?

 

[Tanichca]

what beautiful birds!! Great, now i want some

 

[babylotzahenz]

I love project birds!

 

[alohachickens]

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Well, considering you live in our state, not like it would be hard to get some of these, LOL. I know of three people (myself and two others) raising baby Alohas now, that are going to be up to their EARS in excess roosters, ha ha! Aloha Roos for EVERYBODY! Hee.

Laree also has a small breeder flock set up (Punkin and some very fine, choice women) and might be able to get you some hatching eggs or chicks, you'd have to ask her, but I'm taking a break from hatching for the rest of the summer, and will get going again this fall. I just hatched out my last batch of the season, some Aloha x Sussex crosses to help improve size and body type next spring.

 

[Tanichca]

Maybe I'll join the bandwagon in the fall

Because i am loving these birds.

 

[phasianidae]

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[BuffyGRL]

Great looking project, also great job on all the updates and the website.

Interesting to follow this project. Best Of Luck as I have a few projects of my own

 

[alohachickens]

Here is one of the GIRLS that is in with "Punkin" over at Laree's house right now. I just LOVE this hen, so I loaned her to Laree for the summer. I'd like to see bigger flecks of white, but so far she is the closest I've come to a "Mille D'Uccle" color on what is a smaller standard size chicken. Need bigger white spangles, and larger body size, but we are getting CLOSE! Yay!

I just adore Cleo!

I can't WAIT to see what she produces with Punkin! Later, I will cross her with the half Buff Rock MONSTER roo over here, and then I'll cross her with a pure Sussex roo. Cleo is going to be a busy gal in the year to come, ha ha ha!

Also in the pen with Punkin is the half Sussex, half Aloha hen, who has the body size we need. She's a plump gal!

This is another hen I really like, and can't wait to get more chicks from. This is a really terrific breeder pen that Laree will have over at her place for a while.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

I had to get scientific on this... its my nature. Its so hard to tell who's bigger without weighing them. Lots of them pooped in the holding pen, so I hope they didn't throw off their weight too much.
I am now leaning toward keeping 2...or maybe even 3 of the roos. Plus my BLRW and the lucky speckled sussex who gets chosen. I really shouldn't keep more than that because I have to consider (even if I surpass) my legal limit of fowl. Plus, I only have one breeding pen. And when I say I have it, what I mean is I am currently procrastinating my work on it to make it useable. Right now I have a frame with a chicken wire roof. And a pile of scrap wood and some misc hardware. And a door. I have to go find the rest of the wood I will need. But it's hot and I hate this step of the building process. So here I am!
My plan is to have a rooster pen, my free range flock, and the breeder pen all full of chickens. I will rotate roosters through the free range flock and the breeding pen one at a time. The hens will switch off between free ranging and the breeding pen when I want eggs from them with the rooster of the month. The only other option would be to have only 3 roos TOTAL and use both pens as breeder pens, though the grow out/rooster pen does not have a very nice nest box set-up.
So choices... I really like Easter. He and (sadly) Wings and Condor are the sweetest boys. But of the potential keepers, I like Easter best. I was surprised Fox was so big- I really thought buttercup was bigger. Fox has no mottling that I have noticed, but yes, Big Bluetail is faintly mottled... and has some odd dark lacing on his chest, though it doesn't show up well in pics. The ones I just can't decide between are Nameless, Easter, Big Bluetail, and sometimes Buttercup (though I am not very fond of him- he's a vicious toe-biter!) Most days, I think Easter and Nameless are the two. I could keep them and take Big Bluetail and a few hens to the swap to sell as a set. Or keep Easter and Big Bluetail, and take Nameless to the swap. I really want to keep Easter though. But Nameless is so pretty and Bluetail is so big...This is so hard! I am also worried that Nameless looks like he might have faint barring on his neck, but its so hard to tell.
If this effects the roo choices, the other breeds I have to cross with them are Buff orps, Speckled Sussex, and just as an experiment, some Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. All of these will add some size!
I am completely lost about which hens to keep too. I have been trying to tempt other Oregonians into working on Alohas and I might take sets of the culls to the chicken swap. Obviously Digit and Blackbeak are in- great colors/patterns. Puffy, Snowflake and Sprinkles all have nice bright colors and lots of white spots. Flecks and Goldy are beautiful and on the bigger end. Those are the ones I am thinking I should keep. But Elipses and Calli are kinda big. But there isn't much size difference between most of them. I don't know.
So many pretty boys... it isn't fair!

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

So I went back and looked closer at Fox (my biggest boy) and he DOES have some mottling.... just not much. Maybe 10 feathers with white tips. Sorry the pic is blurry:

Is this enough that I should consider saving him? He has just those few feathers at the base of his tail with white tips, but this means he carries the mottling gene, right? I also went back to look at some of my older pics and I think he had a lot more white tipped feathers when he was younger, but as his roo feathers grow in, they are plain red. I don't know what to think. Is it good that he HAD them, or just bad that he's loosing them? Is it a fluke or will he pass on mottling genes to his offspring?

On another note, I looked closer at some of my other rooster potentials and I have a question. I barring is dominant and I shouldn't keep barred roosters. So how many stripes makes a rooster barred? Cuz Bluetail's tail feathers (and saddle and hackle feathers too) are striped faintly. And its hard to be sure but Nameless and Easter look like their saddle and hackle feathers are striped a bit too. I don't know how picky to be because the rest of them looks good/not barred. Is it possible they are not barred? That they just have a variety of shades of orange in their feathers that show up like stripes? I don't know enough about genetics to feel qualified to make the call. But Bluetail definitely has stripes on his sickle feathers. I can, of course look closer and try to get pics... but the boys are getting pretty wary of me! They are rather suspicious... especially Nameless. He thinks I am out to get him. Fox just about died when I brought him into the house to get pics of his butt! He wouldn't even eat a piece of pb&j sandwich offered to him.
I will have to come up with more tricks to catch them again.