The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

Hey, I love this idea! Aloha chickens, I think I may be IN!

I was really thinking about doing the same thing myself (after some non-starting, expensive, shipped SFH eggs--thx USPS).

Not really sure how to get started. A woman nearby will sell me icelandic hatching eggs--would that really cut to the chase? I hear they are great foragers, which isn't really best for my place, but they are pretty. Fat lazy chickens live longer in my backyard. I've got a chubby little SS hen that I love, and a farmer near me will sell me more SS hatching eggs...my neighbor has a BO/RIR roo I can borrow...(my roos are either black or barred). I was thinking of ordering some sort of BBS eggs, when I happened upon your blog and posts.

I just had my first hatch (barnyard special) and it went real well, so I'm primed to get a project going--

Please get me up to speed and layer on the advice!

Hey Kefiren!

Sussex - GREAT START! But watchout, it's hard to pull out colors from *just* the Speckled Sussex - as it tends to be very hard to pull brilliant reds and oranges out of their dark brown and mahogany colors if you do too much. Want to see more? Check out my latest Blog post. Look at my "half Sussex" chicks. HALF??? They look pure Sussex! LOL! Boy are those genes dominant!

http://alohachickens.blogspot.com/2012/02/update-on-fall-2011-chicks.html

Shocking, isn't it? Those chicks are all HALF Alohas! So keep in mind, it's going to be hard to pull new (light) colors out of Sussex at first. Not until your second or maybe even third generation crosses.

Still, Speckled Sussex crossed with "something else" is a very good place to start . . . ESPECIALLY a BO/RIR roo. Wonderful beginning! Keep babies from that cross with yellow legs and lightest colors.

I like NHR for the bright vibrant reds, big bodies, and good laying! (But they do have short tails. My "foundation" Alohas have long, flowy tails that look fantastic.)

I like Buff Rock for being MONSTER SIZED dual-purpose, also good layers. (They also have short tails. But boy did that add size to my rooster Cheeto!)

Also consider . . . Buff Orp, Light Sussex, Buff Leghorns (lovely tails there!)

If you can find the RIGHT Icelandic, one that is large, and brightly mottled, it could work out well. Here is a photo I found on Google of what would be the "perfect" kind of Icey to use for this program - but good luck finding him! LOL!

Still, this IS an Icey, and he'd be a great pick for the Aloha program:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/herahronn/5845726139/

Many Icey's are too small or too dark to help much, however. It really depends on finding THE ONE.

Avoid any "sex linked" production red or gold, like Red Comet or Gold Comet as those often add dominant white and barring genes that can muck things up later.

Best bet for the FAST track: Mix your Sussex with the neigbor's rooster. Get some first generation crosses of big chickens that carry the mottling genes and also some red and gold colors. Add maybe two NHR hens and a Buff Rock hen or two into the flock. Find a spare "real" Swedish Flower rooster if someone is willing, or get an Aloha rooster from my stock. Mix well.

My stock needs size improvement - so get going with those Sussex crosses if you can.

I can also try and ship a few eggs to you, but note the hatch rate on my shipped eggs has been dismal. Though you may get one colorful rooster that is still good enough to use . . . . that's all you'll really need.

The COLOR from my program came from VERY strange sources! From "mystery" random-bred chickens I've found near me. Both were large Banty size and of unknown origin. That's why my stock is still so small, I have pulled out the colors from these itty bitty oddball hens that fell into my lap. Without them, I would not have had nearly as much progress. These hens are what have made the Aloha line totally unique. Here they are:



Above: This is Oddball, the foundation hen for the Aloha strain. I had never seen anything like her! Isn't she crazy? Unknown breeding, found in a neighbor's yard. They had no info on her. Banty sized.

She was crossed with a half Exchequer, half Sussex rooster. Her four "kids" created my Aloha foundation stock.

Also added, more recently, was "Karma" - also of unknown origin:



She is on the FAR RIGHT - shown with a huge pure Sussex rooster, and a half Buff Rock hen for size comparison. Found her on Craigslist, just a few miles from my house.

These fabulous random-bred hens have added a dash of totally unique color to my line. Colors that didn't come from any "regular" breed that I could have ordered at a commercial hatchery. The price has been smaller size, however, as both were small hens.

Without stumbling across your own "Karma" or "Oddball" you'd be hard-pressed to get some of these colors and patterns using only Sussex mixed with other standard breeds. But I can share eggs if you get some mixes going.

 

[runsw/scissors]

I'll be happy to take you on that offer! Aloha will be sending me some chicks hopefully soon, if you want we can meet up and swap. I'm really excited to join in! I'm an hour or so east of Eugene in a little community named oddly enough, Rainbow!

No worries. I don't have a problem with Washington, it's nice there too! And there ARE Alohas up there now, thanks to MaBo...

Still, the offer stands. If anyone in Oregon needs eggs in Spring, I would be happy to arrange it. I don't go East very often, but I travel around enough to be able to at least meet part way to deliver eggs. My schedule is a bit crazy (mostly I travel for SCA events) but I am happy to help out any new folks wanting to work on this project.

 

[kefiren]

Aloha, thanks so much for your long, informative message!

I'm trying to digest it all.

When I look at Swedish flower hens with my beginners eye, many seem to have all 4 colors at once: white, black, gray and gold. What makes that possible to have all 4 colors going at once? And why is each chicken so different from one another? To me, that seems key.

I was thinking (with my beginner knowledge) that they have 1. speckles and 2. columbian and 3. something else... like splash, but a splash that can do 4 colors (but doesn't always). ie, why is each one so different from the other? This randomness thing is key.

I would say this 3rd element... (splash or whatever it is, this randomness) is the special something (gene) that you really need to get "jump started"?

Or maybe I'm just ignorant, as I say, I'm a noob.

 

[alohachickens]

Kefiren - I'm basically a "noob" too. I know virtually NOTHING about chicken genetics. I do know tons about horse color genetics. I've actually been applying "horse rules" to the chickens, and shockingly, it seems to be working! Wow.

What I know from horses:

In horses, the two base pigment colors are red or black. Black is dominant. Red is recessive.

All other colors in horses are created by genes that "modify" the two base colors.

In chickens, black is one basic color. Other genes modify the base color. The cuckoo, or "barring" gene, breaks the black color into stripes!

Black + Barred = Color like a Barred Rock or Cuckoo Marans.

http://www.cacklehatchery.com/plymouth_rock_hen_std.jpg

That's what happens when you get Barred on top of black. But the Barring gene also works on other colors, too.
So a red chicken gets a pattern of red stripes, it gets a new name (Creole or Crele color) - but it's the same gene working on a red/black chicken,

http://www.cacklehatchery.com/crele_OEG_Bantam_Rooster.jpg

and, a buff chicken gets buff with stripes. (Lemon Cuckoo.) But, it's still the same gene (barring) that is causing the stripey feather pattern.

http://mangrovepoultry.com/images/school and show 022.JPG

Some of these genes, whether they are in horses or in chickens, can "double up" and become DOMINANT. So if you cross two chickens with the stripey barring on the feathers, some of the babies will end up with ONLY barred genes - and ALL the babies will end up barred! So to get the full spectrum of colors, in chickens or horses or whatever, you have this dance to avoid pairing up two really strong genes. If I crossed Barred to Barred, ALL my chickens would eventually look like this guy:



See the stripes on his tail? Not that this guy is ugly, he's actually pretty darn cool! But I don't want the entire flock like this, I like variety. So I'm trying to figure out what is dominant and can take over and what is a shy little recessive that needs coaxing to show itself. So far, bright red and mottling have been "shy". Black and barring are LOUD. Nurture one, and use the other very, very sparingly.

In horses, there are several different genes for spots. Each spotting gene places the spots in one place or another. It seems to be the same with chickens, though I haven't figured that all out yet.

It seems there is one pattern for Sussex that causes these neat tidy little spots all in rows:



That's a pure Sussex hen in the top right. Teeny little spots.

And there seems to be some "other" kind of spotty gene, that causes more bold patterning. I see it in Exchequers and also looks like Tolbunts?

http://www.freewebs.com/professorchickenscolours/polishtolbunthen.jpg

or there could be many genes that cause spotting in chickens. (In horses, a "pinto" horse could be caused by Tobiano, Frame, Splash, or any number of Sabino genes. But there are four basic gene families that cause pinto spots. Plus Appaloosa - an entire OTHER set of unique spotting genes!)

It seems that Alohas do have more than one set of these genes - NOT just Sussex spots. Take this hen for example:



Umm, the above spotting is clearly not a Speckled Sussex pattern! Ha ha!. Looks a lot like the Tobunt Polish in the body, in fact.

Anyway, I honestly don't know a ton about chicken genetics. But I do know the basics in general, and I do know about culling out traits I don't want, and breeding for things I do want. Judging from how things have been going over here, the good news, is it looks like that's all you really need to get started - a little basic knowledge and mostly a desire to hatch out tons of chicks and keep the best.

I was impressed by the thread of another breeder on here who hatched out 60 chicks of a PURE (already existing!) breed just to keep the best five chickens to improve the next generation. Expect a lot of hatching and culling to get the few really cool ones you need. The good news is unlike breeding dogs or cats, there really aren't the same ethical issues in developing a chicken like this. All my culls are very happily re-homed. (Or in the case of excess roosters, some have been "re-homed" to someone's dinner table, but you know what I mean.)

I love to play around with color genetics and doing the Aloha project as a hobby is a guilt-free way to get to hatch out tons of cute chicks. And every hatch is like Christmas, because I don't know what new colors or patterns I'm going to get! It's a blast! I've been having a whole lot of fun doing this.

 

[alohachickens]

BTW - I don't know what gene or genes exactly do cause the "randomness factor" but that's exactly what I adored about the Swedish Flower hens when I first heard of the breed on Feathersite.

That's a big goal of the Aloha's, not to get too standardized in the color. I think it's neat that some of my hens are "mostly dark" with little white Sussex dots, and many others have been "mostly light" - so even if the base color is the same - like a "red" chicken, one would look like a red chicken with white dots, the other like a white chicken with red streaks. I'd like to keep that randomness of color and patterns in the breed. (But hopefully, to get a lot more standardized in the body type and leg color soon. I'm thinking that overall a Speckled Sussex body type is good, but change the leg color to yellow.)

 

[Trish44]

Cheeto sure is a good looking guy! Congrats on your chicks, they're adorable!

 

[ChestnutRidge]

What I know from horses:

In horses, the two base pigment colors are red or black. Black is dominant. Red is recessive.

All other colors in horses are created by genes that "modify" the two base colors. [...]

Alohachickens, this was a fantastic post. I read this thread because it is an interesting project, but I had to pop out for this one! I've been reading Hutt's Genetics of the Fowl, but it is most interesting to see others' actual experience and observations, especially from someone in your position who is hatching a ton and creating a new breed! Very cool, so thanks!

 

[kefiren]

And there seems to be some "other" kind of spotty gene, that causes more bold patterning. I see it in Exchequers and also looks like Tolbunts?

http://www.freewebs.com/professorchickenscolours/polishtolbunthen.jpg

or there could be many genes that cause spotting in chickens. (In horses, a "pinto" horse could be caused by Tobiano, Frame, Splash, or any number of Sabino genes. But there are four basic gene families that cause pinto spots. Plus Appaloosa - an entire OTHER set of unique spotting genes!)

It seems that Alohas do have more than one set of these genes - NOT just Sussex spots. Take this hen for example:



Umm, the above spotting is clearly not a Speckled Sussex pattern! Ha ha!. Looks a lot like the Tobunt Polish in the body, in fact.

...
I love to play around with color genetics and doing the Aloha project as a hobby is a guilt-free way to get to hatch out tons of cute chicks. And every hatch is like Christmas, because I don't know what new colors or patterns I'm going to get! It's a blast! I've been having a whole lot of fun doing this.

After your first message to me, I kept looking through google images at lots of different chicken patterns, houdan, russian orloff, tolbunt, mille fleur leghorn... with two windows open--one for the swedes and one for the others. And I kept going back to the tolbunt!

The fact that both swedish flower hens and icelandics and tolbunts have *crests*... really makes me wonder about the connection. I've read how even tolbunt polish experts differ on the their opinions on how to "recreate" that color pattern. Some think it is a pattern of its own, some think it is a combination of things like mottling and lacing.

Perhaps there was a common ancestor there? Interesting that icies are white egg layers and on the small side--like polish. Swedes maybe had some brown egg layers crossed in (and ended up more colorful and larger for it?)

 

[alohachickens]

There could certainly be a common ancestor between Swedish, Icelandic, and Tolbunts. I would be surprised if there wasn't.

Like I said, chicken genetics - I know very little! Horse DNA, though - I know tons! And in horses, it's fun to connect the dots . . .

For example, one very rare spotting gene in horses, called "Splash White Overo" is found in very few breeds. It's super rare. You'll see it in Icelandic Horses, which have had no outside blood since the 1300's, and in Shetland Ponies, from on an island off of England, plus a wild herd in Abaco Island in the Bahamas. But, also in Missouri Foxtrotters and a few Paint and Morgan horses? How can a gene seen only in ponies off a tiny island in England, an isolated group in Iceland, an isolated herd in the Bahamas . . . also be found in MISSOURI and TEXAS? Huh???

Well, spotted horses went out of fashion after the 1500's in Europe, in favor for more "conservative" solid brown horses. Those elegant carriages looked "tacky" with spotted horses pulling them. (Or so the Europeans thought back then.) So they started to breed spots out of their horses. They tried to dump all their spotted horses to export - and some went to the Americas. On the way to the Americas, sometime in the 1500's, it's thought a few of them ended up on that island in the Bahamas. And a few of them ended up in wild Mustang herds or mixed in with Pioneer stock in the New World. Those ones in America eventually found their way into a few "All American" breeds, which include Morgans, Quarter Horses, Foxtrotters, Paints, TWH's, and Rocky Mtn Horses. (All created here in the US, and all those breeds have had a Splash Overo pop up every now and then.)

The horses in Iceland, well those were imported to Iceland long before the folks in Europe decided spots were "bad". So there are plenty of spotted horses in Iceland. And the Iceland folks, as seen by their chickens, don't really care what color an animal is, so long as it survives up there.

So the rest of all the spotted horses were bred out of all the remaining stock in Europe. A tiny group with some spotting genes survived in the care of those "tacky" Gypsies, who have always loved color. Ironically, now the Gypsies are making a fortune exporting their colorful horses to the US, and Europeans are also paying a mint for American horses with rare spots, to bring them back over there. The rest of the horse market is in the tank, but a few breeders have made a small fortune selling colorful odd horses to Europeans and vice-versa, because colorful horses are all the rage nowadays. Ironic.

Could a tiny randomly bred mutt hen found running in the backyard of a family from Mexico, living in South Phoenix, contain the same spotting genes as a Tolbunt? Absolutely!

How the genes got there must be some strange story, no doubt . . . .

Could Icelandic Chickens, Swedish Chickens, and Tolbunts all be related? Even more likely, ha ha. Consider the Pacific Island nations, rafting thousands of miles across open ocean in tiny canoes to find a far-flung speck of rock to colonize. Often bringing LIVESTOCK with them. Eeek, I can't imagine being in a canoe from Tahiti to Hawaii and just making it there, much less bringing a few pigs along for the ride. Ha! It's crazy how these genes can travel and where they eventually end up.

 

[alohachickens]

80+ Aloha eggs in the 'bator . . . 60 of mine are "for sure" showing development. The 20 eggs from Stephen's flock (three breeding pens) have porous shells. Not sure how those are doing? I can only see life in a few of them but the shells are wonky so it's hard to candle. Looks like he needs to give them a little supplemental Oyster shell. Only one week in, will keep my fingers crossed that those will develop too.

Going to try and ship LIVE CHICKS out again to Runsw/scissors on Feb. 28th. Stay tuned! If it goes well, will try to ship a second batch of live babies out on March 26th. Last year, worked great shipping to Tam'ra. (Crosses fingers.) Any extra chicks hatched out here will go to Stephen's to be raised.

Need to purchase more shipping supplies - will have eggs available soon, as my 'bators are all full and my "helper" Derek has hatched out dozens of chicks with his Sportsman.

If you've PM'd me about eggs, please drop me another line if you're interested right now. Otherwise, I may run them in the Auctions here or even on Ebay to drum up interest in this developing line.