The Aloha Chicken Project

[Sebrightsrock]

I've been looking at all the pictures in this thread and have to say your birds look AWSOME! I just thought I would ask, what about adding Basque hens to the mix? They are great layers and they get to be VERY big. Also the hens do have some spots on them. Here are a few pictures of mine,

 

[Sebrightsrock]

*AWESOME*

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Mottled + Barring = Marring of the white rendering the mottling indistinctive and turns the spots into bits of spots.

Anyway, that's my understanding of it. It seems like it should work but doesn't work real well. Eventually, if one wasn't very careful one would end up with a flock of barred birds instead of spotted.

 

[5moore]

Great news! The owner of this hen has agreed to sell her to me for the program, as long as I agree to let her have her back after "retirement". Turns out she's from Stromburg's. The gal bought her from a 4-H'er who got her in an assortment of chicks from there. Wow, she looks NOTHING like the Sussex in their catalog: https://www.strombergschickens.com/prod_detail_list/s?keyword=sussex She is so much more "upright" in build. I totally like her! And she's going to cross so great with my little Pumpkin rooster. Okay, so here's pics of the boy I want to put her with, who while he still has a lot of filling out to do, is now breeding hens: Good news: He's truly another PUMPKIN boy!!! Look at that [COLOR=FF8C00]orange[/COLOR] tail! And, he is way way way more mottled than either of my previous two Pumpkin roos, plus he has yellow legs, unlike the past Pumpkin guys! (They both had slate legs.) The bad news? Size has kind of stalled out. He was growing great. Then in the last month, one roo (the boy that was mostly white as a chick and now looks pure Swedish) suddenly shot up in height, while all the other roos "stalled out" in size. They all just stopped growing! Bummer!!! So, while he's a huge improvement over my previous Pumpkin roos in terms of color - with lots more spots and yellow legs to boot - he is still very lacking in size. I think crossing him to this "new bloodline" Sussex hen would be a terrific cross! All the chicks would surely have lots of spots, and while they may not be huge (as now I'm learning the roo does a lot to control the size of the chicks) at least they will carry some larger genes thanks to the Sussex bloodline. I'm really excited, as this could be a very unique dose of colorful + standard size genes. I did not get the age of the hen yet, however? So it could be merely that she's 5 years old and that's why she has so much white! Ha ha ha! But anyway, it would still be "new" Sussex bloodlines, and we could use the genetic diversity, so I'll take it regardless. Looks like Stromberg's is pretty pricey to order from, so this is great to be able to buy an adult hen from their lines and get chicks THIS spring.

He is perfect!

 

[5moore]

Sommer I love your pumpkin roo!

 

[alohachickens]

Great news! I just got the Stromburg's Sussex hen and WOW she really is all that and a bag of chips!

She does NOT look like your "ordinary" Sussex hen. Nothing like the boring "Privett" stock we see around here. SPOTS. Lots and lots of 'em!

Here's a few pics:







Here's some other cool info from the owner. She is only 9 months old! So this is NOT a "normal" Sussex hen who has molted out for five years.

The owner has hatched out some of her chicks - and some have had yellow legs, she reports! Which means she could have something else in her background. (Like mentioned, sometimes hatcheries will "improve" a flock of purebreds by adding something else that lays well, which is A-OK if that's the case here.)

I am so exited about the cross of her with the yellow legged Pumpkin boy.

More pics of her feathers:






Hooray fresh bloodlines yay!!!

 

[alohachickens]

The funny thing is, the new hen has a CLONE here! Ha ha ha!

Okay, so the hen shown here is half Sussex, half Aloha. The Sussex side of the family tree, was a great big ginormous Sussex rooster, who was hatched from a BYC'ers private-breeder stock eggs, that were sent to my friend Laree. Laree ended up with extra pure Sussex roos, and brought me the monster guy, who was huge but had little spotting.

He was crossed with some of my nicest, most colorful Aloha hens. The result was big Nui, and this lovely much smaller but beautifully spotted hen. Anyway, this new hen looks almost identical to the Sussex/Aloha cross hen. Size wise, the Stromberg's hen is either not terribly large, OR our improved Alohas are finally in the honest "standard" size range. Either way, the half Aloha hen is slightly smaller, but you really have to look close to tell.

 

[alohachickens]

I've been looking at all the pictures in this thread and have to say your birds look AWSOME! I just thought I would ask, what about adding Basque hens to the mix? They are great layers and they get to be VERY big. Also the hens do have some spots on them. Here are a few pictures of mine,

Exactly what Deerfield said. The Mottling makes it hard to see the spots. The Basque do have a lot of really great qualities that are similar to our Aloha goals, and it would be wonderful to incorporate some of these. I'm going to keep an eye on the Basque. I think the key will be finding the RIGHT hen to bring into the program. Even though there is no "set" standard on the Basque, already most folks are favoring the yellow legs over the white/pink legs, and a lot of folks are also liking the spots on their Basque, although the Basque's barring makes it hard to see. So maybe we'll see a Basque breeder working towards spotty hens with yellow legs. That's what we'd need.

Aside from the Barring, which appears to be 100% dominant in the Basque, the breed does have a lot of good features in general, that would mix will with Alohas. (Very hardy birds from what I've read.)

As the Basque become more common, I will keep an eye out for the right chick to bring into the flock. I think we Aloha folks are going to just have to keep an eye out for any oddities we find in other breeds - whether it's a super-mottled Basque with yellow legs, a strangely spotty Java, a really spotty or unusually bright Sussex. Those will be the ones that could help us most.

The "regular" Basque will need an outcross generation first, to try and remove that barring. It can be done, but you have to be careful or the barring will take over completely. And, while they carry spotting, it's not very bold. I need to see a Basque hen with yellow legs and so much spotting, even the barring can't hide it. That's the one I'll want for the Aloha program!!!

 

[alohachickens]

Example of Basque hens - I pulled these from pics by BYC'er "thatbloke" from the Basque thread. Again, NOT MY PICS - for illustration purposes only!

Here's a group of his Basque hens:

If I could find someone with these locally, I would rather do that and purchase this hen to try:

If I could wave my magic wand, I might try her with my new super spotty Pumpkin roo. But I would want to start with a hen with this much spotting plus the bright yellow legs.

Unfortunately, I don't really have the room to raise a batch of Basque to adulthood to try and pick one out. But if a local breeder ends up with a hen like this, I would pay a good amount for her to give her a shot in the program and see what she throws. Would need a very bright rooster but I think my new Pumpkin boy or the half Swedish half Aloha roo I have could work too. Just lack of room to try all of these different possibilities. Let me know if you'd like to give it a shot, I can send a few eggs to you, which probably wouldn't do any good to someone starting an Aloha program from scratch, as in the past the poor hatch rates of shipped eggs rarely gave anyone enough hens to get a real start. But if all you need is one colorful Aloha roo to try over a flock of Basque hens, I think it would be fascinating to see the results.

 

[jbolt]

Hello everyone. I have just set 40 Aloha eggs. The new Sussex hen Alohachickens got came from me. I'm very excited to be a part of this project and showing off the babie. And I'm so glad that speckles has a purpose. I will post pics of the Leghorn cross babies to show thier yellow legs. Also, though they only carry 1 copy of the mottled gene, with dominant white to boot a few display a few mottled feathers. Maybe you guys can figure it out. Pics coming in am