The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

x2.

It is so nice to see all the little yellow legs in this batch of Exchequers as well. Some have much more yellow legs than others. I also ordered a few other chicks of different breeds, all that have yellow legs. I had hatched some chicks of my own the same day so I threw them in the same brooder and realized this morning I can't tell my hatched chicks from the shipped chicks. I started looking for chicks without yellow legs - there aren't any. Then it hit me. The sire of my hatched chicks was a Welsummer....who has yellow legs. So even the chicks I hatched wound up with yellow legs!

There is a Welsummer / Aloha cross hen with the Pumpkin roo right now. Derek tried the cross last year. Color - dark brown looks just like a Welsummer. Size - not ridiculously tiny but the Welsummers are not big to start. Legs - Yellow.

She does carry the gene for mottling because there are two little random "blobs" of white on her feathers that clue you in. Her eggs are a darker color, a pretty light orangey terracotta color and are slightly larger than the eggs of a "regular" Aloha. It will be interesting to see if we get any mottled chicks from the cross and what they look like?

It will be very fun to see what your Exchequers do crossed with other colors and breeds. I used an Exchequer/Sussex roo early on so I mixed the two Mottling strains from day one. I wonder if by working just with Exchequers, if you will see a different pattern of white? I can't wait to see how it goes.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

I just did a Blog update with chicks from the "Little Yellow Legs" pen. New photos!

http://alohachickens.blogspot.com/2013/04/here-are-chicks-from-little-yellow-legs.html




There were a few of this pen's eggs in the Kansas "airline" hatch that Deerfield is growing out now!

A few of these are looking so nice, I only wish I'd had room to hatch out and raise more to pick out those "gems".

I have 6 or 7 that are coloring up like these. They change very fast but it's really fun to see yours because I can project how some of mine are going to look. These should really lighten my really, really red birds and yellow up the legs to boot.

HEChicken, that's just wild you got some Speckleds! I have 3 Ideal chicks that are about a couple weeks older than the Alohas. They really do have more white. I think you're going to be happy how they color up.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

alohachickens, I just hatched two of Nicoletta's eggs! One is a very blonde looking chick, the other is still wet but looks dark like a SSX. It will be fun to see how they turn out!

 

[alohachickens]

alohachickens, I just hatched two of Nicoletta's eggs! One is a very blonde looking chick, the other is still wet but looks dark like a SSX. It will be fun to see how they turn out!

Yay! Let's hope they turn out nice. Wonder who the daddy is? I'm sure we will find out as the grow!

 

[notinoz2007]

Quote: yes please!
i am the small hatch person around here, lol.
So, of the 19 eggs we set for the kindergarten class this year only 3 hatched (10 infertile, 6 quitters) and she is keeping them! i am excited for her but sad for me, i was looking forward to having a few babies around this spring. SO YES, if you want me to incubate and hatch just your large eggs to see what comes out i will be more than happy to do that. start collecting and give me a call.

also, my strange dark aloha you were speaking about is going to be in a pen with what i believe is a pure swedish roo and i am going to incubate eggs from that pen this year. i thought about doing it over the summer, but not sure, might wait til fall. i do have an air conditioned spare room separate from the house i can brood them in... we'll see.

 

[alohachickens]

Just got back from Stephen's. I took photos of the breeder pens. The last pics were kind of lousy!

This is pen #4. Isn't this just awesome?

 

[alohachickens]

Here is Pen #1. Also filled with awesome-ness.





I love the above photo, because the hens were kind enough to "organize" themselves nicely.

On the right - the large dark spotty hens are Meyer Hatchery Speckled Sussex. Lovely hens!

On the left - half Sussex, half Aloha hens. The rooster (their daddy) was a pure Speckled Sussex (large roo, few spots, shown a few posts back) and the moms were small Aloha hens. As you can see, these three hens on the left, while not as large as the Meyer hens, the brown "base" color is noticeably lighter and brighter! They did not get that spotty - because if you look at the Sussex dad to those hens (a few posts back) he did not have much spotting.

Rooster is half Swedish, and his mom is one of my tiny white Confetti hens.

The babies from the hens on the left will be 1/4 Swedish, 1/4 Sussex, and 1/2 Aloha. The babies of the Meyer hens will be 1/2 Sussex, 1/4 Swedish, 1/4 Aloha.

 

[notinoz2007]

looking good. i dont know which pen i like better. cant wait to see what hatches from them.

 

[alohachickens]

Now for the ????? pens.

Notinoz - these are a couple of pens I'll be looking for "hatch helpers" from. If these pens don't excite you, I'll also be putting a "shout out" to the Permaculture Guild and the AZ Chickens thread!

So, this is Jorge's Roo, in with daughters of Cheeto. Jorge's Roo looks lousy, but he's a "first generation" Aloha rooster. He was given to Jorge, and survived over a year there, amazingly, and then survived up at Stephen's since then. Tough, tough, tough little guy.

His dad was Vanilla, the "foundation sire" of the line. I never had anything suitable to breed him to. The spotted hen in there, she is a blue tailed, crested Swedish hen. The rest are daughters of Cheeto.







There is going to be a TON of culls in this hatch. What I'd love to get is even just a couple of hens with yellow legs and good spotting, hopefully in some lighter color. But we'll have to cull 3/4ths of the Swedish hen's chicks, as half her chicks will have crests, and half of those will carry blue! And the yellow hens with yellow legs - not only will only half the babies have spotting, but now we have seen all the difficulty we've had getting spots on the Cheeto line. As spotty as Jorge's roo is, can he overcome that tendency for the spots to "fall off" at four months old??? I have no idea. I mean, I thought it was impossible, but then Laree got that one buff hen with the yellow dots. So I don't know anymore?

But, the genes could be kind of "fresh" because Jorge's roo has never really been used at all. We haven't had anything really suitable to cross him with until now. I am thinking if someone on BYC or on the Valley Permaculture Guild is just interested in "chicks" then I could maybe say just give me ONE hen back out of every 10-15 chicks that I give them?

Here are past photos of the roo:






It's not that HE is so fabulous, but I know that his dad was so fabulous . . .

 

[alohachickens]

Another ???? pen. Pure Swedish roo, in with some itty bitty SUPER COLORFUL little Aloha hens, plus more of those Aloha/Sussex cross hens. This is Stephen's





Pen #2, I believe is the number. I don't know, the Swedish boy is not that big, he doesn't have a lot of white on him, and the hens are so small. The half Sussex hens are much better sized, but then their dad had so little spotting, it's not going to add a lot of "flash" to the babies. So it's going to be very hit or miss.

However, I just LOVE these two little Aloha hens and I'm hoping we can get these through another hot Phoenix summer. I would love to see these hens in with a Buff Sussex rooster! Can you imagine getting these kind of spots on a Sussex body? As small as these hens are, their colors and patterns are 100% PERFECT.

This is the color patterning and amount of white I'm looking for in Alohas:



They just need to be a whole lot bigger. Hmmmm . . . . .

How to do that? There's the million dollar question!