The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

So, I haven't posted on here since this past Spring, because to be honest, there wasn't much to post. Living in Phoenix, our heat comes on FAST and at that point, the hens stop laying. It's too hot to raise chicks. It didn't cool down until October, but then November rolled around and the days got short - so when the heat backed off enough for the girls to start laying, the short days stopped them instead. (eyeroll)

It's not just the Alohas, everyone around the Valley of the Sun has been reporting the same issue. I kept about 20 adult hens from last year's stock (*plus raised about 100 babies) and all through November was only getting maybe 3 eggs per day. I was finally able to hatch a batch of about 50 peeps that are being raised by someone in Mesa, AZ who is going to give me back the best "trio" of two hens and a rooster, probably in March when they are 4 months old and we can get a good idea of color and size.

I don't like to post during the Summer because heat deaths are so common when it's 115 degrees! But the good news is the chicks survived well, I think I only lost 2 out of about 100 babies this year? (That's probably a record.)

Anyway, here are two roosters that are not quite of breeding age (yet) but they show perfect color - body color and leg color - and they are the SONS of the "place holder" rooster in post #2805. I put that perfectly colored boy in with my most-spotty and BIGGEST hens in hope that I'd get someone who got Mom's size with more of Dad's color. It sort-of worked? These boys are not HUGE as I'd like, but they ARE bigger than the dad, so it's a step in the right direction!

It's really nice to see these two boys with the 100% perfect "goal" coloration, even if they could still use one more bit of size boost. However, they aren't small by any means - they just aren't as "jumbo" as my biggest boys. They are at least as large as a Leghorn rooster, but probably closer to Welsummer or perhaps hatchery-quality Speckled Sussex in size.

(They obviously look NOTHING like a Speckled Sussex however, ha ha.)

 

[HEChicken]

Hey there! Took me six months to find your post here, LOL, so don't feel bad, ha ha.

Wow, this is pretty exciting! Since I hadn't heard from you in a long time, I kind of figured that something awful had happened. What a relief to see this!

That Millie rooster in particular is looking very striking.

Heya, good to hear from you too! I hadn't taken any pics since the ones I posted earlier this year so I ran out just now to get some updated pics since by now of course they are full grown. As you know, they often lose a lot of their spots in their juvenile molt so I am very, very pleased with what I'm seeing (considering I started with a tiny leghorn hen and a solid New Hampshire Red rooster). I have 2 hens and 2 roosters that for sure will be going into breeding pens in the spring. Here is one of the hens:

I realize that is much more black than we want but those spots!!!

Now for the roosters. They are pretty close but one has ended up slightly better than the other. Here is Number 1: As you can see, he is a BIG bird AND he has retained some of the mille fleur even through his juvenile molt AND he is red.

And here is the second rooster. He also is a big boy and red. And if I didn't have Number 1, I'd be happy with this boy, but he isn't quite as spotty. Still, I am happy to have him as a backup just in case Number 1 doesn't make it through the winter.

 

[alohachickens]

I realized after I posted those pictures of the boys, that they have actually matured a lot in the 20 days since those pics were taken.

Here's a couple more photos from right now. They still aren't showing the maturity to breed. Pretty sure it will be end of January at the very earliest before they are mentally ready to go lead a flock of their own.

This color - mostly white with dots of color scattered throughout - is unique to large fowl in this project (but also seen in "Calico" Cochins) and the color DOES breed "true" but I lost it for a few years, because I was trying to increase size, so I outcrossed to some solid colored larger breeds and had to work it back in.

 

[alohachickens]

Heya, good to hear from you too! I hadn't taken any pics since the ones I posted earlier this year so I ran out just now to get some updated pics since by now of course they are full grown. As you know, they often lose a lot of their spots in their juvenile molt so I am very, very pleased with what I'm seeing (considering I started with a tiny leghorn hen and a solid New Hampshire Red rooster). I have 2 hens and 2 roosters that for sure will be going into breeding pens in the spring. Here is one of the hens:View attachment 1619994
View attachment 1620001
I realize that is much more black than we want but those spots!!!

Now for the roosters. They are pretty close but one has ended up slightly better than the other. Here is Number 1: As you can see, he is a BIG bird AND he has retained some of the mille fleur even through his juvenile molt AND he is red.

View attachment 1620005 View attachment 1620011

And here is the second rooster. He also is a big boy and red. And if I didn't have Number 1, I'd be happy with this boy, but he isn't quite as spotty. Still, I am happy to have him as a backup just in case Number 1 doesn't make it through the winter.

View attachment 1620016 View attachment 1620019 View attachment 1620021

WOW! Very, very excellent work! Look at the QUALITY you're getting - the body shape in particular. Deep keel, nice combs, yellow legs!

I think that (after you have hatched your own, of course) if you would consider sparing a few eggs, it might be time for me to attempt to *try* and integrate from your pen - at some point - into mine.

I don't know how we'd accomplish that, because of course the hatch rate on shipped eggs is dismal. I have family in KS but I don't know of any plans this Spring for anyone to be driving back and forth. (There was a graduation a few years ago, for example, and my parent's drove to Lawrence, KS and back to AZ.)

But if there is some sort of way to integrate in the future, that would be outstanding! Looking at your rooster's build, versus my young boys, mine have the color but yours clearly are superior in type. Now if we can just transfer this color onto your "frame" LOL.

 

[alohachickens]

Here are pics of 2 more boys that I just got back from someone. I had given her hatching eggs from my "very special" breeder pen - the BEST hens - but I was going out of town and couldn't hatch that week. So I asked her if she'd be so kind as to contact me if she had excess boys.

Most people forget when I say stuff like that, but she went through efforts to find me, and I'm SO grateful! I got these two LOVELY boys back. One is a Millie rooster with yellow legs. Looks very much like a "Speckled Sussex" of hatchery stock in size and build and amount of white spotting. However, he has the yellow legs and lighter color that I'm working towards, and his quality is good and size decent.

I wasn't able to get good pics of either because they are in a small side pen. I'm going to re-organize the breeder pens and rotate them in with some hens, to replace a wonderful looking rooster who is sadly under-performing (I candled eggs from his pen and there were 7 fertile eggs, and 15 infertile) so these boys will be shuffled in for a week or two at a time to try and pick up the slack.

The one with more white is bigger, but he's got the pink legs - which indicates his strong Speckled Susssex ancestry.

These are terrible photos, the darker one actually has terrific light golden tones, and very good spotting on his chest. I'll get better pics later when they are in the (larger) breeder pen.

 

[alohachickens]

I also realized that I haven't even taken any photos of the hens yet.

This Spring, I had a terrible incubator mishap. The thermometer that I keep in the BIG cabinet incubator, it fell out and I didn't think much of it at the time. About a week later I noticed the temp had dropped a couple degrees. I adjusted accordingly. Then, when I went to candle, I was getting nothing but blood rings? Turned out, the thermometer had been damaged when I dropped it and I had "cooked" about 200 eggs from my carefully curated breeder pens . . . . ARRRRGHHH. An entire month of prime egg collection down the drain.

At that point, I had to scramble (pun intended) to gather "whatever" eggs were still being laid in the coop. No rhyme or reason now - just stick eggs in there and hope for the best. So the 80-100 chicks that I hatched were just "whatever" and the BEST eggs from my BEST hens were mostly lost. It was pretty catastrophic.

So here's some pics of what I did get.

The good news: LOTS of color, including a return of the unique "Confetti" color - the mostly white with small colored specks that is unique to this project.

The bad news: Once again, a lot of the hens are on the small side. Not as small as before - since I have introduced at least 25% more "outside" blood from Sussex and other "large breeds" in the last few years. But, since I lost the eggs from my carefully curated pen of the (6) or so hens that have both SIZE *and* COLOR - these were mostly eggs from my "general breeder pen".

My "general breeder pen" or what I call "the barn flock" is mostly for sales of colorful chicks to local buyers. They are hearty, colorful, durable little hens that do great. However, only about 10 hens are really TOP quality, and I had saved every last egg and had those marked . . . . made sure every one made it into the incubator . . . very few of the 100 chicks that I raised were from those hens.

The good news is my friend in TX that I sent eggs and chicks to, she reports the Ameraucana and RIR hens / rooster that are in with her Alohas are the same size - or the Alohas are often bigger - so these are not tiny. Just not as large as I'd hoped they would be. I had some OUTSTANDING hens that were huge and colorful and had hoped to increase those instead of just adding "more of the same" for Spring 2019.

Oh well.

Anyway, here's the pics, and check out how consistent some of the Confetti hens are looking . . . like little clones. Remember these all need yellow legs (eventually) but hopefully I'll get there in time.

In the above "group" pic, it includes a few that I'm going to cull. I gave my neighbor some chicks to raise, and I held back some of the "meh" ones to trade out with her. I need to get my numbers down, anyway, so I'm going to offer her 2 of my hens for each 1 of hers. She has a nice NN Aloha hen who is BIG with plenty of spots and also a smaller Confetti hen, who at least has the yellow legs. It's basically time to set up the breeder pens, since with Phoenix being so warm, our "chick season" is full swing by February.

 

[alohachickens]

I also hatched out a tiny group of chicks in late October. Hardly anything, since almost nobody was laying. It was still 105 - 110 well into mid October.

There were a lot of Naked Neck chicks, because the NN hens are the best layers in the heat. No biggie, the NN gene is super easy to breed out if it's not wanted later.

As predicted, the batch of 20 chicks has been "all over the place" genetically. (Because it was random - all the laying hens with "whatever" roosters.) There are tiny, pathetically small hens with great color, medium hens with mediocre color, and a small few that show promise.

The two most promising just happen to also be Naked Necks. There is a Confetti rooster who is very large compared to his hatch-mate boys - only one boy is a touch bigger but he lacks this fellow's color.

There is also what appears to be a NN hen who is also Confetti color and has bright yellow legs. If she is indeed a she, her size is ENORMOUS as she towers over most of the baby roosters. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The best 5 or 7 of these will be raised for a bit to see how they develop, but wasn't too terribly optimistic about the results, since this was a very random mix.

I have another batch of chicks "baking" in the incubator that is out of two small breeder pens with some of my best hens and roosters. They are due on New Year's Day and I'm very excited to see what hatches from that group! It will be a small batch, but could have excellent quality.

 

[HEChicken]

Wow! I love that confetti coloring and yes, if we can find a way to transport eggs and trade back and forth, that would be great. I had the same thought that your confetti coloring on my big boys would be stunning. I'll keep you in mind if I know of anyone traveling your way and if you do happen to visit KS, I'd love to get reacquainted.

 

[alohachickens]

If by any chance you visit Texas - in particular the San Antonio area - there is a breeder there who is a friend of mine. I know it's a long shot but she can take dropoffs of eggs and incubate them and I can get the chickens or offspring from her later, as she does pass this way maybe once or twice a year.

Anyone interested in raising Alohas, we now have flocks in San Antonio TX area, in Arkansas, and in Oregon. So if anyone's looking for eggs or chicks in the Spring and live in those states . . . you finally have options locally.

 

[alohachickens]

I'm hoping to find other people willing to breed in other states. I can ship limited numbers of chicks - maybe can mail out 5 or 6 boxes per year? Only from late February to perhaps early April, due to heat. Can't ship out of Phoenix if temps go above 85 which happens in April usually.

Minimum is 25, you really need to raise that many so that you can pick out the best 2 roosters and maybe 8 to 10 hens to achieve a decent breeding flock. Cost of box of 25 will be $100 ppd again this year, unless the shipping rates have gone up dramatically or something.

Really hoping to expand availability to new states or regions. Need keepers who are experienced and are willing to keep a breeding flock and share eggs / chicks with others nearby.