The Aloha Chicken Project

[Deerfield Acres]

Karen, thank you for sharing this with me.

You bet. Now we can swap eggs and all kinds of fun stuff! It's a great safety net too. If one of our flocks has a problem we still have the other one! Yay! Don't you have a RIR roo? I'll be looking to trade for some of those eggs crossed with the Alohas!

 

[tazcat70]

Nope, no RIR roo, but I do have a red rooling, that is LF and looks like he might be promising. So keeping him for now. My friend Kathy (in Mo) has really great New Hampshires. I may see about getting one of her extra roos.

 

[notinoz2007]

so guess what? for the second day in a row king hasnt crowed til at least 7am. and for the first time ever i heard snow crow today. i was getting ready for work and heard it, then thought something was wrong with king - he sounded sickly. but it wasnt even him!
we went out to dinner with friends tonight and when i got home i went out back to check on the flock. well, snow stands up and checks me out, wondering what i'm doing back there in the dark. and king is just sleeping away, couldnt have cared less if i was there to eat them all...
i have no idea what is going on in this coop!!
btw i LOVE the baby pictures, and i lol'd at the stinkeye puffyhead in taz's first pic. so cute.
tomorrow DH and i are off work and are going to do some coop/run renovations. i'm excited (he doesnt know yet, LOL)

 

[Deerfield Acres]

My DD's took these cute photos for your viewing pleasure. You may wonder how they got them to be so cooperative. Do not worry no animals were harmed in the making of these photos. The girls put them where they want them and then cover them with their warm hand and the little birds just doze off. Once they remove the warmth, all bets are off and some immediately jump up and head for the exit.

I know everyone has seen little wings appear but I'm just amazed how very quickly they come in. We are sure enjoying these little ones.

My DH has offered additional space for my birds knowing full well he'll have to insulate it. More work for him and he offered with a smile on his face. He's the best sort of guy, I think!

Have a great weekend!

 

[alohachickens]

I wondered about that, because I swear some of these have muffs, in fact my favorite little boy has muffs. I say boy because he is so much larger.

Early on, I introduced an Ameraucana hen - to see if I could create blue-egg laying Alohas. This hen was super-healthy, really HUGE, and laid large, pale blue eggs, any time of year, and all the time. She was crossed with my 1/2 Exchequer x 1/2 Sussex rooster so her offspring were not directly related to the "foundation" hen Oddball, but were crossed with Oddball's babies.

I re-homed her with Laree, where she continued to lay for years. Laree called her "Battleaxe" because of her very tough temperament! LOL!

So she was a good hen, with all the size and vigor and laying ability that we want in the breed, but in the end the unwanted traits like gray legs and pea combs were too difficult to breed out. And, in trying to breed those traits out, the blue egg color was lost anyway!

I'm still trying to remove the gray legs and get the combs consistent, today, thanks to that. I don't really mind the muffs, I honestly think they are pretty cute! But since we have to pick ONE breed standard, and most of the "outside" breeds that we'd use for crossing will have clean faces, we're going for clean faces on the final product. I don't stress the muffs as I think they'll fade away naturally as we out-cross to Sussex, NHR, Buffs, and the like.

It's a good lesson to think carefully about what you want to introduce to your flock, because you'll be working with those traits (good or bad) for years to come!

This hen, that I gave to my neighbor, was culled for having muffs and gray legs. She was hatched about six months ago, so the traits do linger on:



You can see she is still very beautiful, and in fact, you got some of Ray's eggs, so the chick you like could very well be her son!

 

[alohachickens]

KarenS - what cute little babies!

Runswscissors - can you post photos of your babies this coming week? Mine are doing all kinds of CRAZY things!

Suddenly, my one-month olds have colored up in just the few days since I took those photos for you guys! It has literally happened overnight! I can't wait to show you guys new photos. Karen, Taz - when you see the new babies you're going to get really excited at what's to come!

I now see what look like miniature "Ginger Girls" but with pink legs, instead of gray legs??? YAY! (We are going for yellow legs eventually, but pink is one step closer to yellow. Those chicks would be kids from the Ginger Girls crossed with Flame, who has pink legs.) I can't wait to see how these develop.

I also have one adorable chick that looks all orange and white with orange legs! I don't want to jinx it, sure hope she doesn't lose her color, but OMG, if she stays this way she is going to be so cool! But ehhhh . . . . they do surprise you all the time, so you can't count on anything until three to four months. Sometimes the plain ones get beautiful then and sometimes the colorful ones go "blah" around that time.

Going to let them finish feathering out and take photos next week . . . but I'm wondering what Runswscissors is starting to see in her flock . . .



This is a photo of one of the Ginger girls, who has gray legs with pink toes. These new chicks are looking very much like this but with light legs.

 

[alohachickens]

Okay, I had to take photos of other stuff anyway, so I broke down and took photos of the babies again. (Even though I wanted to give it one more week.)

This one is really exciting me! But - will she (hope it's a she) keep her color?

I can't tell you how much I really really want an orange and white hen with yellow legs! Like shades of buff mottled but without any black . . . . I'd have to call them "Citrus" colored! LOL!

But who knows if this one is going to keep this color or not? Sure is pretty right now:









Awww! She's so cute!

 

[alohachickens]

Here is the light one that was showing a ton of white on the chest. Even more feathers in now:



The giant rooster chick behind her isn't looking to shabby, either!

Here's the little pink-legged "Ginger Girl" - or at least one that looks like she might end up that color???



And then, of course, there is a sea of brown-ness that may or may not develop anything cool later. Sussex chicks take forever to start looking neat, so who knows? These could just be taking their sweet time to show us a bunch of spots:

 

[runsw/scissors]

I'll post soon, I promise! Life is suddenly very busy here...

The explosion of colour is just amazing isn't it?? I have one that is mostly white with pumpkin coloured spots along with some dark patches... weird!

The pictures are amazing people, please, please keep 'em coming!

 

[runsw/scissors]

Here are some...



and yet another:


another:

^^^^^ is the nearly white I was telling you about.