The Aloha Chicken Project

[LittleLaneFarm]

You'll see other chickens in my mom's rooster picture, those ladies were not purchased and added to the flock until after mine were already hatched. so there's no confusion who the mother and father of my adults are Here is a side pic here is a top and a picture of it next to it's hatchmate.

 

[notinoz2007]

none of the above pictured birds are true ameracauna, or any ameracauna mix either. they should have pea combs and fluffy muffs and beards.

i'm not sure what the first rooster is, but he is barred for sure and really pretty. the second rooster looks like it might be an old english game.

 

[LittleLaneFarm]

I figured they werent true, because of the rooster tail and the hens combs but thats another story my roo and hens are related....ya know, no one has ever questioned or told me they werent Ameracaunas, so thank you for being honest. They must just be an easter egger, they do lay a blue green and a green blue egg, the hens have a slate green/gray leg color. I just wasmt sure if the black and white tail was from an aloha or another breed and then I had the speckled chick too....know what I mean

 

[alohachickens]

I could not believe my eyes when i saw these chickens, they are a match to my games here on the gulf coast of texas.i don't have pics but i will. amazing likeness !Mine are true fighting game. i raise them for fun and eggs. the original cock i started with his grandfather was a 3 time derby winner. pics later!

That would make sense, as the "original" Alohas contained Mexican Game stock. Though it was immediately mixed with a Sussex / Exchequer Leghorn cross rooster, the Gamey type still pops up in some of the offspring. I believe the Mexican Game has contribute a lot of hearty constitution, as the smaller Alohas are excellent fliers and really heat tolerant. I bred out any fighting nature and right now I have six roos all housed in the same area. They do chase each other a bit, but for the most part everyone gets along great. The most chicken-aggressive roo that I had was a Buff Rock and the most human-aggressive roo I've had was a Swedish Flower. Not the gamey types, which oddly can be housed together very easily. Strange, huh?

This is a WILD (or rather, feral) chicken from Kauai, Hawaii. Which displays the excellent Mottling and obviously they do well on their own. Though this one has slate legs, others had yellow legs. I guess a hurricane set loose a ton of chickens about 10 years ago and this is the result. Game stock was very popular over there.



I am trying to get the crazy colors on mine, but on a more round, plump, "farm chicken" body. And hopefully keep a bit of the Game toughness, too!

 

[HEChicken]

Sommer....good news! Last night I went to do evening chores and saw an Exchequer that had suddenly turned into a boy overnight - in that it suddenly have a very red and largish comb. Then it hit me - its not a boy - its a pullet getting close to laying age. I started to look around and realized they are ALL getting red in the face and growing reddish combs. This really did seem to be a huge change from just a day or two ago! When I do the math, I realize they are now 18 weeks old but they are still so small I was thinking of them being much younger and therefore not even close to laying age. It will probably still be a little time before I get the first egg but its exciting to think we're getting close. I am seeing some really good mottling on some of them too, so I'm really ready for the next phase of this venture.

 

[alohachickens]

Sommer....good news! When I do the math, I realize they are now 18 weeks old but they are still so small I was thinking of them being much younger and therefore not even close to laying age. It will probably still be a little time before I get the first egg but its exciting to think we're getting close. I am seeing some really good mottling on some of them too, so I'm really ready for the next phase of this venture.

Oh, goody! I can't wait to see progress made on this first generation cross! Now you see what I mean about the pure Exchequers. They have terrific flashy color and are top notch layers, but they aren't that big, right? Cute little hens . . . but emphasis on little.

Hmm, I wonder if there will be time for you to eeek one hatch out this Fall before your temps get too cold? Hard for me to imagine "too cold" out here, as our temps have held steady at an average of 107-111 the last few weeks. It will be October before our weather will be "just right" for hatching, and I hope to make some progress then.

However, I want to make a shout-out to you, and to Deerfield, and to 5moore - I will be seeking hatching eggs from Aloha / Large Chicken crosses this fall.

I have made some progress in the size department, thanks to the Swedish and Sussex influence. There are a few hens in particular that are almost as big as the Swedish (and resemble them in appearance) but do show improved mottling from the Aloha side of the family tree:



This hen is pretty big, maybe not as big as a Swedish but closer, and so far her mottling is more pronounced than the pure Swedish.

However, I am now kind of "stuck" in terms of size progress, because we lost our nice Garry Farms roo to the heat. And the eggs from my Dun Sussex roo over Speckled Sussex hens did not hatch! The heat rendered the Dun Sussex roo sterile for now. He should regain his abilities later this fall. However, I was hoping that Dun Sussex / Speckled Sussex cross would get me a GIANT rooster for size improvement. The plan was to use the Garry Farms roo this spring, and the Dun Sussex crosses, if they had hatched last month, would have been breeding age by December and ready to use for Spring hatch size improvement. (The Dun Sussex boy is a huge marshmallow of a roo and those Meyer Speckled Sussex hens are also hefty gals!) I am sure we will get that cross, eventually, provided the parents make it through the heat this month. But I would feel a lot better if I were growing out some kind of suitable size roo in the interim.

5moore mentioned a friend might have spare Jubilee Orp that could be crossed to little Aloha hens. While the Orp is not the feather or tail type we seek, my big hen "Nui" is about 1/4 Buff Orp and the size improvement that dash of Orp provided was incredible, considering how diluted the Orp in her background is. (Nui is 1/2 Aloha, 1/4 Sussex and 1/4 Buff Orp, but is LARGER than most pure Speckled Sussex hens.) I am thinking that a half-Jubilee Orp, half Aloha roo could help size a lot. Also eagerly awaiting Deerfield's Buff Sussex maturing. If she's willing to toss a couple of colorful Aloha hens with a pure Buff Sussex roo, well, at least there would be no problem picking out the lighter Aloha eggs from the breeding pen? I am so excited at the thought of any Buff Sussex crosses . . .

Hechicken, in terms of the F1 first-generation Exchequer/German New Hamp crosses, I'd be better waiting for the results of the second cross, when you can start to get the spots back and/or weed out the darkest chicks. Otherwise, I'd surely lose all the lighter colors I've worked so hard for. However, soon as you make some progress on the future generations - I can't wait!

Because if we take away COLOR, what you are talking about in your flock, is simply a New Hamp / Leghorn cross. What is there not to love about this cross? Good layers, better meat from culls, great farm chickens. If you can breed red and white spotted, the color is going to be the icing on the cake. But above all else, the chicks from your cross are going to be excellent, practical chickens that any farmer would love to own.

But, if we can get them in red - and - white checkered to boot, all the better!

I did get one hen that has the color that (IN THEORY) you could possibly get in your second generation crosses:



This hen is brown and white, black tail tip, yellow legs. A flock of these that were also kick-butt layers? I think a LOT of folks would be happy with this in their backyard!

 

[alohachickens]

Question...I have a rooster which I always questioned if he was true Ameracauna, but his tail was the wrong coloring. So my when my Ameracauna hen had a speckled chick, I started looking around and thought I would ask your opinion. Obviously they are cross bred with something else, but I was just trying to figure out with what LOL Here is a pic of the chick with my hen and the next is my rooster I got these from my mother who believed she had Ameracauna chickens, her hen looks like mine and here is her rooster. He has black with white in his tail

I am kind of wondering . . . I sent some Alohas up your way years ago. Two batches, to Oregon and Washington. The culls were sold on Craigslist. I wonder, could these be part Alohas? Stranger things have happened, I guess!

 

[HEChicken]

I absolutely intend to hatch this fall if possible. Last year I hatched in mid October and had no problem getting the chicks grown out enough to get through the winter. So as long as they start laying between now and early October I will hatch every day they lay LOL. My plan then would be to grow out those chicks over the winter and in spring I'll be ready for F2. Very excited about this!

 

[jbolt]

Hi sommer, I just thought I'd check in with you guys, and let you in on my aloha plans for the next season. I have 4 young roos and 5 pol pullets. They are the best of the best of my first Gen of alohas. I will be each roo over his best matched hen, and hatching out those eggs.I am attempting to create 4 male lines, and I will chose the best producing roo/hen combos as my foundation. After the progeny from those 4 lines reaches 10 weeks of age, I will cull based on weight at 10 weeks for roos, and cull out slow maturing hens(anyone not laying at 24-26 weeks). Ive read that with this system, it takes about 3 generations to see good broiler sizes in your roos, and good production in your hens. I welcome any suggestions.

 

[alohachickens]

Jbolt, sounds like you have it figured out! Next is the hard job of raising all those peeps. I can't wait to hatch more in October when I am done with traveling for a while and it's cooled off.

I took some new pics, and FINALLY have some good samples for showing proper white we should be going for in Alohas.

First - what a BUMMER that the Ideal chicks arrived weak, sick and dying. I was only left with three hens out of SEVENTEEN chicks! Pathetic. Something went horribly wrong at the hatchery. They sent me another person's order of chicks by mistake and all 25 of those died, as did my two other Partridge Rocks in this order. Because they started dying as they arrived, and were raised at a BYC friend's house who had no sick chickens on his property, I know the issue was not with the breed or the environment - they arrived weak, sick, and dying.

What a shame, though! My plan to keep the most spotty of 25 chicks WOULD HAVE WORKED. I was left with three pullets that have survived to this point. Yes, three. Here they are:



The chick in front has barely any white, much like the Sussex sold by Privett's locally in the Phoenix area. The chick in back shows much more white, and the one in back of the pack has some white in-between. If I was able to actually get 25 or 50 of these chicks to raise, I can imagine the variation in color from most-spotty to least-spotty would have been more dramatic. If it had worked, the idea was to look for the most extreme spotty chicks and keep those. I will give away the least spotty chick shown, but that's about the best we can do with only 3 pullets remaining. SIGH!

More pics of the babies:


Most-Spotty chick (ABOVE.) Note the white on neck/face.


The other two chicks - pullet on left will be culled, not enough white.

So, anyway, it was a great plan, but getting a poor batch of babies messed it all up. Dangit.