The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

Sommer I have a friend who raises speckled sussex, she is going to let me know in the next couple days if she has a rooster of breeding age for me. I messaged her yesterday about it cause this was my thinking as well. The two whiter hens are a great size. The two that are more red are a little smaller than the whiter hens.

Today I was able to take some pics of the four I have in my grow out pen. These four are just at point of lay. I know one is laying for sure. They have yellow legs and great size. Once the weather warms up more I am going to weigh them. These 4 girls and 1 roo was hatched September 6 2014.

Not showing nearly as much white as the two very mottled hens, it looks like? I do see a yellow foot. LOL.

I would almost think building breeding stock mostly from eggs with the two large very white hens would be best, and then keep the less spotty in the egg-layer flock on "backup" in case you ever needed them? (And they could be nice egg producers while being on standby.)

 

[alohachickens]

Sommer I have a friend who raises speckled sussex, she is going to let me know in the next couple days if she has a rooster of breeding age for me. I messaged her yesterday about it cause this was my thinking as well. The two whiter hens are a great size. The two that are more red are a little smaller than the whiter hens.

Today I was able to take some pics of the four I have in my grow out pen. These four are just at point of lay. I know one is laying for sure. They have yellow legs and great size. Once the weather warms up more I am going to weigh them. These 4 girls and 1 roo was hatched September 6 2014.

Re-read your post. If these have good size AND yellow legs, then if you can find a nice Sussex roo (especially one with nice spotting) then yes, they would lighten up the base color and add the yellow leg gene, which would be pretty cool.

From previous experience, I can tell you this hen crossed with a Speckled Sussex will give you what look like really crappy Sussex. BUT they will have a teeny bit lighter color, and they will carry the yellow leg gene Any time I crossed a red or orange Aloha with the darker Speckled Sussex, the Specked Sussex mahogany totally took over.

(But if you went and crossed those chicks back to an Aloha the lighter reddish colors would start to come back again. Mahogany is tough to lighten up but it can happen eventually. LOL.)

 

[alohachickens]

Sommer I have a friend who raises speckled sussex, she is going to let me know in the next couple days if she has a rooster of breeding age for me.

Oh - forgot to ask! Your friend who has Speckled Sussex - what line are hers from?

Just wondering if it's a different line from what I have here, (Meyer's, Waltz's Ark, and a couple babies from a Cackle hen).

Also, wonder if they are different from Deerfield's lines.

Although to be fair, I think we have PLENTY of genetic diversity at this point, especially when compared to many other breeds that are severely line-bred. Nobody has ever said how many Swedish Flower were originally imported, but I heard a rumor it was something like six? Which would make sense, as expensive as it is to import.

 

[alohachickens]

Oh, great news! Speaking of Sussex . . .

I splurged on a dozen hatching eggs ($30 with shipping, ouch) from a breeder on Ebay who has a super-spotty flock.

Not sure how they are in terms of Standard Of Perfection, or really for size, either, being as there aren't any other breeds shown alongside to compare them with? All I know is they are very spotty, and this breeder has been selling dozen after dozen after dozen of hatching eggs. I had to try bidding many times to win this auction and kept getting out-bid.

So whatever he is doing, is very appealing to the general chicken public, obviously! He says he's been breeding for lots of spots.

Anyone want to weigh in with a critique on these? In terms of build and structure.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Dozen-Hat...s-/111608698478?&_trksid=p2056016.m2516.l5255

I just checked a few of the eggs, and many are showing signs of development. Doesn't mean they will hatch, or if they do hatch, they will survive to adulthood even - we all know how fragile chickens can be! But at least there is some "action" showing in these eggs. That's promising. We'll see if this becomes something brought into the Aloha flock.

 

[alohachickens]

I tried to get out today and take pics but didn't get many good ones. It is frigid here today and the wind is howling. I think at the time I was out the thermometer read 16 but Siri tells me that with wind chill it was about 3 degrees. The hens themselves weren't cooperative. Only one was really out and about and she got increasingly suspicious as I "stalked" her. Another was huddled in a corner (laying down) and pics of her wouldn't have been good, nor could she be enticed to move. I'll try to get some better photos another day. All three actually look almost identical - the only difference between them is that one of the hens has white ear lobes. Here are a couple anyway - not great photos but at least you can see her from both the front and as she ran from me.





It would be no big deal to add these three to the hoop coop when I separate out the Exchequers with a NH rooster, so I will plan on that. It will be easy enough to tell them apart since the EL's lay white eggs while these hens lay light brown eggs. If I can separate them in the incubator, I will even know which chicks are which after they hatch. Fingers crossed the EL's start laying soon so we can put this plan into actual.

I am wondering if I should take you up on a few of these? The odds of getting something carrying spots will be really small. In theory, only half the eggs would be Mottled carriers. But if I got two hens to hatch that were 3/4 NHR and 1/4 Exchequer, I could pen them with a really colorful Aloha roo and see if any of the babies hatched out spotty. If the NHR rooster you have is top-notch, the worst the experiment would do is improve size and type on the babies. LOL.

 

[alohachickens]

alohachickens, 5moore, I am collecting eggs from my Speckled Sussex (Ideal) hen/Buff Sussex cock currently. This hen is a decent sized bird with evenly distributed spots. So 5moore is welcome to them, if she's interested. I will have more later in the season, I'm sure, but the ones I am collecting now will go in Monday. This hen has been uncharacteristically healthy also. I had two other Ideal chicks but they turned out to be cockerels with not much spotting so I didn't keep them. I haven't used any antibiotics at all on these birds, just the usual dusting and worming.

Ooooh, I am so excited to see if you can pull out Mille Sussex from this crossing!!!

Please keep us posted on how your babies grow out. And when it's not FREEZING please show us pics of the parents. (Even if it's in a month or so when temps are not so wicked back there.)

 

[HEChicken]

Those plastic (clear) trays that strawberries come in, they have lids attached, work great for departing clutches at hatch. I usually can get 6 to 9 in a two quart box. The one quart ones will hold three or four eggs.

Great tip - thanks! A good excuse to go and buy a punnet of straw (or other) berries as well.

HEChicken, did you ever find a "tell" on either of these hens? A stray white feather tip, on a wing, or tail, or whatever?

Nope - not a single one. One hen has white earlobes but I believe that has to do with egg color and doesn't suggest mottling gene at all.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Dozen-Hat...s-/111608698478?&_trksid=p2056016.m2516.l5255

Deerfield is our resident Sussex eggspert so I'll be interested to hear what she thinks of these. I looked at the link and I have to say, I have a really hard time judging birds from photos unless they are really high quality pics. A tutorial from which I learned about body type also specified the angles the photos should be taken from in order to judge them correctly. I.e. a side shot where the bird is looking straight ahead, a rear-end shot where the bird is not moving so you can judge leg set, an overview shot so you can see the bird's frame. And so on. None of these pics is taken from an angle where good judging is possible.

With all that said.....to me they look a little scrawny. I think of Sussex as being a full-bodied bird and these look to me as though there has been too much focus on developing a spotty bird, and not enough on retaining the desired qualities of the Sussex. The second to last photo - the one where the hen is pecking at a piece of corn on the ground - is the best example of a sussex type from among these birds.

But again, please understand I am no expert on Sussex and the photos are not conducive to making a great judgement anyway. And, as you say, it is difficult to tell size on them.

I was going to say I'd try to get photos of my NH roosters but as per the above, it would be hard to get photos that would give an accurate idea of their size. Suffice it to say they are really BIG boys. I may still try as I like to have good photos in my collection. Sadly, the majority of the photos I take are not good photos [wry smile]. If I get anything decent, I will post it here. Probably not today since our high for today is supposed to be 23 so I will be spending as much time outdoors as I need to, to take care of everybody - but not a second more.

 

[HEChicken]

I threw my camera in my pocket when walking out the door to do chores last night thinking if I had the opportunity to get any good photos of the NH's I would. I didn't. However I caught the hen with the white earlobes by herself and was able to get a few good photos. And in doing that, guess what I found? A tell! I can't believe I've never noticed it before and now I feel like I have to go back and look at the others a little more closely as well. It was snowing at the time so there are a lot of snowflakes on her but I think you will find the telltale white spot even with the snowflakes for distraction.

 

[draye]

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Yep, a tell tail.

 

[HEChicken]

Yep, a tell tail.