The Aloha Chicken Project

[Deerfield Acres]

Fingers crossed for you runs!

Here are my little test run chicks. They are Big Spotty over 2 Alohas, 1 New Hamp, 2 Speckled Sussex and 3 EE

So the chipmunk striped ones are Sussex and EE's so they aren't really my main focus. I'm hoping to get more spotting from the Sussex birds. The hens and rooster are all very big birds and decent type so if I can get more spotting going combining the spottiest sussex I would be really happy. I have 2 EE hens that I love dearly and just wondered what they would look like crossed with the Speckled. The ones I least needed yielded 3 chicks! Good grief.

Now for my favorites! The little yellow chick is crossed with my big spotty sussex and look how light colored it is! I'm psyched about this one. It's feathers, although just barely coming in, look interesting to me. The second pic is a bit more correct color-wise because this chick has a definite yellow tint. So cute!!!!










Next baby is a Big Spotty New Hamp chick. It's the second chick from the left. Again, the wing feathers coming in are interesting. See that reddish tint?




This little chick looked like a lavender when it first hatched but now it looks more brown to me, so I don't know how that happened but that and the leg color makes me feel pretty sure this is a Big Spotty/Aloha.




Look at those legs. Even though there are 3 chicks that are Big Spotty/EE chicks, there are no gray legs. That was unexpected.




I'll post Aloha hen pics tomorrow.

These chicks were born last Wednesday. Big Red's eggs are in the incubator. Separating the birds into breeder pens has been postponed until this next weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that, also. I haven't had a chance to set up the breeder pens, yet, maybe tomorrow?

 

[notinoz2007]

speaking of breeder pens. i have my almost 5 month old aloha roo, Mr Yellow, in a pen with varying shades, sizes, and ages of alohas. plus 2 (was it) buff rock. he is young, but he is getting some action so i am hoping by the end of this month we will for sure have some fertile eggs.
pictures unfortunately must wait a few weeks til the good camera comes back, lol

 

[alohachickens]

I got one Aloha chick out of 6 I set... One made it to the point of creating a breathing hole out of the egg and then died before hatching.

This one looks like a chipmunk, with black and brown stripes on a yellow body. Grey legs tho. Her(crosses fingers!) adopted Mum is doing a fabulous job raising her. Quite a cutie tho! I have 6 more in the bator as well as 5 under a determined broody and another Aloha that is determined to set as well, she has 6.

Cross your fingers every one!

Sounds like a bumpy start! But I'm so glad you're trying. How long did you collect eggs before you put them in the 'bator?

I usually collect eggs for 10 days, then start incubating that batch. Then, I keep on collecting for another 7 days, and set those. Then I give it a rest for a bit because I can only raise one batch of babies per month, due to brooder space.

It gives me a 17 day total egg-collection "window" but when the chicks hatch, there is only a one-week difference in age in the babies. I find for some reason if the chicks are about a week apart, everything is fine and you can raise all the babies in that "batch" together as one. But push it any further, and the older chicks tend to pick on the youngsters.

Just thought I'd mention this, because as a small breeder this has been the most efficient way for me to raise batches of chicks! It's tough when you have a smaller group of laying hens to work with, to build a nice flock up. But with this method, even if I am getting only 2 eggs per day, I can gather 30+ egg hatches and would often end up with batches of about 20 chicks hatching out.

When I started, I only had Kona and Ginger (the two hens) and Vanilla (the one rooster) plus a few Exchequer x Sussex crosses and an Ameraucana to work with.

I used this technique to start and in the nice-weather months, I was able to raise about 20 babies per month. Which of course is about 100 chicks in a season. Now that I have more hens it's a lot easier, but wanted to mention this for anyone working with breeding using a smaller flock. (Like 5 to 10 hens.)

Sommer

 

[notinoz2007]

like me

i can only hope to get 20 chicks out of this batch currently incubating, and i would love another 20 in nov. i plan to cull heavily on chicks, thinking of only keeping the ones with yellow legs, what are your thoughts on this?

 

[alohachickens]

Fingers crossed for you runs!

Here are my little test run chicks. They are Big Spotty over 2 Alohas, 1 New Hamp, 2 Speckled Sussex and 3 EE

Look at those legs. Even though there are 3 chicks that are Big Spotty/EE chicks, there are no gray legs. That was unexpected.




I'll post Aloha hen pics tomorrow.

These chicks were born last Wednesday. Big Red's eggs are in the incubator. Separating the birds into breeder pens has been postponed until this next weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for that, also. I haven't had a chance to set up the breeder pens, yet, maybe tomorrow?

WHOOT! That's awesome, Karen!

And what great results with the EE'er chicks. I do like EE'ers in general, because they have been bred for PRODUCTION and my hen was such a reliable layer. It was very tough breeding out the secondary traits - the pea comb, the gray legs, and the muffs. And I don't even really mind the muffs, those were kind of cute. We just culled those because eventually we want the Alohas to have a more "uniform" look. The pea combs made it hard to sex roos as easily, but I personally don't have anything against pea combs if they have a practical reason. (Like for someone who lives in an extremely cold climate where big combs have frostbite issues.)

But those gray legs have been so difficult to breed out! To see all of these and no gray legs is wonderful. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky on breeding out the pea combs.

Can you refresh us by re-posting the pic of the dad, Big Spotty? And of the two Aloha moms that were in this pen? I think we can all picture the Speckled Sussex, NHR, and EE'er parents.

This is great, should have some nice big babies from this cross. They look very healthy. Congrats!

 

[alohachickens]

like me

i can only hope to get 20 chicks out of this batch currently incubating, and i would love another 20 in nov. i plan to cull heavily on chicks, thinking of only keeping the ones with yellow legs, what are your thoughts on this?

I think that's a great plan . . . except your Mr. Yellow Legs also has a lot of white and he can contribute both SPOTS and YELLOW LEGS to the chicks! So of course you'll want to keep an eye out for really spectacular hens. A gorgeous hen with ANY color legs should find a use somewhere, even if it's at a breeder pen elsewhere (my place, Laree's, or Stephen's.) But if I recall, you said Mr. Yellow Legs wasn't that big? So he can help us with yellow legs, and with adding color, but he can't really bring "size" improvement?

But - for the babies YOU keep - since you have serious yard space issues - we need to get you the BEST. If you end up with 4-8 Aloha hens, that's plenty for one rooster. Any more than that and he tends to skip hens anyway! I find about 5-7 hens per roo has been working best for me.

I'm really glad you have the two hens from that test-hatch with the Sussex hens and the Buff-Barred roo. That's kind of a "unique" bloodline, since I didn't use that rooster again. So all you really need is a handful more Aloha hens to put with the pure Swedish rooster.

We need to think about the next stage . . . if you get this pure Swedish roo from me, he has terrific size, so if you can get the color (and maybe yellow legs on some?) we'll just have to look for hens from this batch who might mesh well with him.

The Swede's legs are a pale yellow, not the nice vivid yellow of your roo's leggies! I took a picture of him the other day. Now you can show your hubby. LOL!



Young Pure Swedish Rooster. (Maybe for Notinoz?)

 

[alohachickens]

speaking of breeder pens. i have my almost 5 month old aloha roo, Mr Yellow, in a pen with varying shades, sizes, and ages of alohas. plus 2 (was it) buff rock. he is young, but he is getting some action so i am hoping by the end of this month we will for sure have some fertile eggs.
pictures unfortunately must wait a few weeks til the good camera comes back, lol

Notinoz -

Those two hens I gave you that looked EXACTLY like pure Buff Orps? They are actually HALF ALOHA. Their dad was a "retired" roo from my own breeder program. Their dad was the same dad of Flame, and most of my current hens!!! He was red and white mottled.

Took me a while to find the pic. This *should* be the father of the two Buff hens and the one solid dark-brown hen. When I was done using this rooster, he went to Derek's, and Derek put him in a breeder pen with some pure Buff Orps and a pure Welsummer hen. As you know, the spots are recessive. It's going to be really interesting to see if the color re-appears when you cross with Mr. Yellow legs. This will be your baby chick's grandaddy:

 

[alohachickens]

To Joe in NM:

Trying to show size on the hen with good spots:




This is probably the best "size" photo:




The LARGE hen with small spots in the foreground, on the left. She is half Sussex, and is about as big/tall as a full Sussex. Size compares to a full Swedish Flower hen, too. Note the orange and white hen in front of her at the dish? How much smaller she looks? This spotty hen (seen behind her) is also about as big as the orange-spotted hen, but has a better shape (less "gamey" and more rounded) and is overall a better body type than early Alohas.

So, this little spotty girl is small, but she's a nice type! She is probably half Aloha, half Sussex? Most likely she got her small body size and fabulous spots from the Aloha parent, and probably got her dark mahogany color and nice round body shape from the Sussex half.

 

[alohachickens]

This is the best photo showing our size issue on the small Aloha hens. LOL!

 

[alohachickens]

Aloha Project Members! Don't forget to get a photo of your best hen or rooster and submit it this week to the Calendar thread!

You can only submit two photos and they need to be high resolution. Most of my good pics were too small so I took some more yesterday and this morning. Not as good as some of my past photos, but what can you do with just a few days to take them? Bummer!

But, since I was running around this morning anyway, here's a few photos of my flock. These are the "reject" photos - they have blurry parts or bad lighting, but they show off some of the Alohas really well so thought I'd share them here anyway:
















Here is the link to the 2013 Calendar Thread, photos have to be in by next Monday!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/701435/your-chicken-pictures-needed-for-the-byc-2013-calendar