The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

good. What egg size are you all getting?

Mine lay a medium or maybe even small egg (not "Banty" small, but maybe store-bought small) but they make up for it by being very consistent layers. I have some Buff Rocks in there that lay really HUGE brown eggs, but those only pop up every now and then in the nests, while I get at least some eggs from the Alohas year-round. My older Aloha hens are still very steady layers, too.

 

[alohachickens]

Third, I have Swedish Flowers but haven't been sure I want to use them with my Alohas. The reason being that they seem to carry a ton of blue. I only have one Swedish hen who is appropriately colored for the Aloha project, but she has a crest. I got so many puffy cheek birds from my Ricky cross that I'm not eager to repeat that scenario with crests. The Swedish roo is okay, but I'm still hesitant on mixing the blues and crests he has in his background with my Alohas. Since, 5moore is using the Swedish, I will have those available here at a later time when I am ready to use them and once we see how they are crossed with the Alohas. The things we'll need to hope for from that pairing is better predator awareness from the Aloha side, since mine don't seem to have a care in the world, and a bit faster maturation. We couldn't hope for better temperament -- I believe those are going to be the most people oriented birds of all the crosses. Hopefully, they will get the predator awareness from the Aloha side.

Those are the reasons for my hesitation and I have been yes, no, so much that I'm driving myself crazy. You would think that with all of the above, it would be a simple no answer. However, that isn't the case. I'm wondering if it may not be beneficial for me to take the Aloha/Swedish chicks and sell them locally in an attempt to bring even a couple more people in to the project? It would also give me a chance to watch them grow out firsthand as I sell them off over time. It would be valuable experience for me, without the financial obligation of fully raising them myself and it may be an opportunity to expand our group.

So, let me know what you think. Either way, I owe you some GNH/Aloha crosses this fall and am planning to provide those to you. I'm pretty excited about these GNH's in regard to their size, better type and temperament. They are really nice birds.

Just a note - I've eliminated blue from my flock for this very reason! Although if I get any eggs from my friend Laree, her Swedish roo (put over Aloha hens) will result in some blues. However, I can just as easily NOT include any from her small breeder flock. (Even if I do include those chicks, only half the chicks will show blue.)

I would have no problems if you wanted to resell or share some chicks to get other folks started. With Swedish Flower chicks still selling very high, having something that even "kind of sort of looks like a Swedish" and is part Swedish, for a fraction of the price, could tempt some folks to join in. Heck, if you wanted to try and sell them locally for double what it cost to ship a batch out there, to try and recoup the shipping costs, I won't mind at all. (Like if it costs $1.25 per chick to ship 50 chicks to Kansas, and you wanted to sell half of them locally for $2.50 each, then yours would end up being free.)

It is true that the Swedish are clueless to predators. It's crazy how trusting the Swedish Flowers are. (And goofy and sweet.) Just so you know, yesterday I moved two pure Swedish hens over with that big, gorgeous Aloha rooster in the neighbor's yard. (I finally got his pen set up!) One Swedish hen had been handled a lot previously, the other never had been held since a chick. Both relaxed and let me walk them over to the pen, docile as can be.

Then, I grabbed the Aloha x Swedish hen, who was much harder to catch to begin with! She fought the whole time and bounced out of my arms the second I let go of her. Similarly, in the coop, the two half Aloha half Swedish roosters are both on the verge of "taking over" control of the main pen, over the pure Swedish . . . despite the fact they younger, and smaller in size! So yes, the Aloha blood does not make them crazy or flighty, but they are more aware and alert, thank goodness.

Soon as the pens are sorted out, it will be the pure Swedish roo (with no blue) in with all the smallest, most colorful, (and sadly, small and gamey type) hens. This will be the "main" pen.

Here, let me give you guys a quick visual of all the breeder pens we'll have set up within the next week. Looks like there will be SIX BREEDER PENS TOTAL - three here, two at Stephen's, one at Laree's. Participants are welcome to have chicks from specific pens, or a mix of eggs from all pens for the most diversity.

Look at the planned groups below, and use that to decide if any of these might work with your program:

MAIN PEN #1

BIG pen: Pure Swedish Roo, over Small Aloha hens:






(these hens are really small)
---------------

SECOND PEN #2

Medium size pen: Half Swedish, part Sussex, part Aloha rooster. In with part Sussex and other "improved" Alohas. (Aloha hens with some "outside" blood introduced to better size or body type.)

Most notably, he will go in with "Nui" who is the largest half-Aloha that I've bred to date, and the hen I suspect may be her daughter, "Beauty" (plus a few other hens.)


Above: Half Swedish Roo
Below: Part Sussex hens, "improved" type from Aloha bloodlines


Above: Nui, who is as large as a pure Swedish or pure Sussex but is half Aloha.
Daughter (???) Nui, who is also very large but shows recessive "not-Sussex" coloration.

Below: Very small Aloha hen with great body shape and color.

So he'll be with maybe five or six hens total, three of which are shown above.

---------------------

SMALL PEN #3

Smallest pen: Cool large Aloha roo from next door, with my big PURE Swedish hens, plus a pair of half-Swedish half-Aloha hens with good size but needing more color and yellow legs.


Above roo, with Hens like this:

Pure Swedish and half Swedish hens, about four or five hens total.

----------------------
Last, over at Stephen's, will be two breeder pens that I can pull eggs from.

Stephen's Pen #1

The half Swedish, half Aloha roo who is mostly white, will go with his pure Sussex hens. Here is that rooster:



Here are the hens, from Stephen's flock of Meyer Sussex:




The chicks will be 3/4ths "big chicken" of good type (Swedish + Sussex) and the last quarter would be my smallest, most feisty and colorful little Aloha hen's blood! So, the Aloha in that pen will bring size down, but I know which two hens had to be the mom, and they are tough as nails which hopefully can help boost the strength of the more genteel Sussex and Swedish blood.

------------------------
The last breeder pen at Stephen's will have a pure Swedish rooster, bred from the pair of pure Swedish that I have here (no blue) in with Stephen's half-Sussex, half Aloha hens.

So, the rooster looks pretty identical to his daddy. Since I don't have a pic of the roo (he's already in the pen up at Stephen's) I'll post a photo of his Dad. (Again, but note in reference to his son.)

Stephen's Pen #2



Hens mostly look something like these, very "Sussex-ish"

Note: Above hens contain zero Swedish.

So the plan is to have no chicks contain more than 50% Swedish or more than 50% Sussex. They will contain from 25% up to 50% "foundation" Aloha blood.
---------------------------------

I don't have photos of Laree's pen yet. Her entire family has been on Tamiflu with whatever evil flu bug probably you had to deal with! So I've been staying far, far away from her house until that clears! She did set up a breeder pen for me, with her most colorful Aloha hens and the pure Swedish rooster. I'll get photos of pen #6 when the coast is clear for me to visit her. LOL!

Note, I plan on documenting each pen with EVERY hen, and Blog post about it. You can also use the later Blog posts to custom create your own breeder pen, maybe for later April or May chicks. So there is that option, too! Whatever you decide is fine with me, just let me know.

Now stare at the photos and try to ponder the crosses . . . What do you think the baby chicks will look like? That is the fun part, isn't it?

 

[alohachickens]

Note - the offer to pick from specific pens is open to anyone who wants to work with these!

Though if it's not specified, I'll be gathering eggs from ALL the pens to ship chicks out with as much genetic diversity, to anyone who would be starting from scratch.

 

[alohachickens]

One more PS. I do have a few baby hens from the "grandchicks of Cheeto" pen who do not contain Swedish blood. (Only Buff Rock, Sussex, and Aloha bloodlines.) They will be ready to lay in May. Probably will be too hot to ship live chicks from Phoenix in June, but who knows? They are still looking a touch small - not as big as Nui or Beauty, but not as small as the original Alohas. Size of Leghorn hens, probably?



Future breeding hens with zero Swedish blood.

 

[tazcat70]

Looking so good Sommer!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Okay, After much deliberation I've decided my preference would be 25 chicks from your pen #2 and 25 chicks from Stephen's pen #2. All of them are fabulous! I don't think I'll have any trouble selling these chicks. I'm going to copy your pics so I can post pics of the parents when advertising on Craigslist and the Facebook swap page.

We're having a ridiculous snow today. My birds are all cozy in their pens covered with plastic on three sides. Supposed to get ice and snow tonight so it could get really messy around here. I couldn't be happier to finally be having some moisture around here!

 

[15littlem]

Could you guys put some pics of your SFH roo x regular breed hens?

 

[tazcat70]

After bringing the 4 pullets home from Karen's I was looking at my roosters. The one I like the most has a funny tail. All I can think is it must be wrytail. (sp?) Soooo he will be taken out of the breeding group.

He was the one whose coloring I liked the best and a little larger in size.

I will have to keep an eye on the chicks that are hatching from the Welsummers to make sure I don't keep any that have it.

Sommer, keep me informed on the Non-Swedish Aloha girls progress. Do you have a roo to put with them? So excited to see how they grow out!

 

[alohachickens]

Oh my gosh.

Went out to the coop and found my favorite rooter, the one that was going to head Pen #2, deader than a doornail, lying on the floor.

And here I was . . . ready to set up the breeder pen, soon as I moved Little Yellow Legs out of there. SO CLOSE.

Hmm. I don't really know what to do now??? Trying to figure this out. Zero idea what happened to him. He was heavy (probably 10 lbs.) with glossy plumage, did not appear to be sick. Did not appear to be injured. How absolutely bizarre.

RIP, handsome guy.







I have over 10 dozen eggs here, and I did see him jump on some girls in the main pen, but I won't have any idea which eggs will be his chicks unless we just randomly get some nice ones that happen to look like him.

I don't have the resources to hatch and raise all of these, so the eggs will go over to Derek's. I'll just have to make sure I get over there to check out the chicks. Look for clues who might be his.

I don't know what I'd do, if I didn't have two such nice young baby roos growing up right now. That is the only thing that keeps me from being totally devastated at the moment. Those baby roos should be ready to breed by mid-April. But it leaves me in the lurch for the next six to eight weeks.

I can re-distribute the hens between the Swedish roo, and the one that I nabbed from next door.

Or, I can use "Jorge's Roo" instead. This roo is small, and was the son of my original rooster, "Vanilla". So he isn't much to look at but has a nice pedigree. This is the roo, from a pic I took just a couple months ago:











He's really small. But his dad was Vanilla, the original Aloha roo:


He was rather large. So, I don't know?

Ideas, anyone? I mostly have small, colorful hens and a lack of larger hens in general.

 

[HEChicken]

Sommer, so sorry about the loss of your roo. Wow - a 10-pound nice looking bird must really be a disappointment to lose.

Tazcat, sorry about the wry tail issue in your roo too. My one Aloha hen has quite a severe wry tail too. And spurs. Did I mention I have an Aloha hen with spurs LOL?