The Aloha Chicken Project

[fosterson]

Boy am I glad I put in a batch to incubate when I did...darn chickens went on egg strike the minute it snowed...which was the same time my internet went out Still not fixed. What I get for living in the back of beyond and being too cheap to drive into town more than once a week.

Anyway, my Sussex and my Icelandic spotties are growing well. This is a picture of them this afternoon. They were hatched September 13. Only the breeder I got them both from was pretty sure the Sussex was a roo and the Icelandic a pullet...I'm thinking it's the other way 'round. Anyone want to take a guess? The Icelandic's on the right, the Sussex is on the left. The Sussex has very pale pink comb and feet, but the Icey's got very yellow legs, they just washed out in the photo.



Dreaming of spotted chickens come summer.

 

[alohachickens]

Anyway, my Sussex and my Icelandic spotties are growing well. This is a picture of them this afternoon. They were hatched September 13. Only the breeder I got them both from was pretty sure the Sussex was a roo and the Icelandic a pullet...I'm thinking it's the other way 'round. Anyone want to take a guess? The Icelandic's on the right, the Sussex is on the left. The Sussex has very pale pink comb and feet, but the Icey's got very yellow legs, they just washed out in the photo.



Dreaming of spotted chickens come summer.

Hmmmm . . . . the Icey is looking a bit roo-ish to me. Sussex, I don't know??? So we're at 3+ months, the time when a Sussex usually just barely starts to show the white, and yours is covered in it. I don't think it matters which way 'round it is! Either way they would make an awesome cross and I can't WAIT to see the babies from either one! And the two combined, wow.

 

[fosterson]

The Aloha-ing has begun...My first RIR or Sussex X Goliath crosses are hatching and this is what I've got so far!



Wait a cotton pickin' minute. Those are FUZZY feet. Goliath's not feather footed...so either my 1/2 Cochin/1/2 RIR got to her, or my 1/2 Silkie/1/2 Easter Egger got to her. I'm worried for this hatch's success...at least it's got a HUGE straight comb and yellow legs right out of the egg?

 

[fosterson]

Oh man. As if yesterday's chick wasn't bad enough...the three today...two are black naked necks and ONE looks like the spittin' image of Goliath. I guess when the meat roosters got out for a 'few minutes' they partied harder than I thought. Good thing my other half has fallen in love with NNs.

 

[draye]

Oh man. As if yesterday's chick wasn't bad enough...the three today...two are black naked necks and ONE looks like the spittin' image of Goliath. I guess when the meat roosters got out for a 'few minutes' they partied harder than I thought. Good thing my other half has fallen in love with NNs.

Naked Necks are so cool! Hatched out 15 yesterday myself.

 

[5moore]

Aloha chicks at 4 days old.

 

[fosterson]

Aloha chicks at 4 days old.

Look at those chipmonky stripes!

 

[fosterson]

Well, bad news was I only got 6 chicks from 36 eggs.

More bad news was that obviously the meat roosters had more fun than I expected them to and I got one feather footed and two naked necks from 6 chicks.

Even MORE bad news: The single Heritage RIR that hatched has a bum leg and though we're trying to save it, it's probably only got a 50/50 chance at this point.

Good news: Two of these chicks are OBVIOUSLY Goliath's. At 2 days younger than the others, they're already twice as heavy, stand almost an inch taller, and are just as bright and perky as you could want. They've got straight combs and one has white legs, so it's going to be the Sussex cross, while the other has yellow legs, so it's an RIR cross! YAY! At least now we know that Goliath passes on his size some of the time!

And the feather footed chick isn't totally bad news -- at least it's got a straight comb and yellow legs and looks like it's going to shed out to a buff Columbian color. I think it came from one of my Sussex girls.

 

[alohachickens]

Oh man. As if yesterday's chick wasn't bad enough...the three today...two are black naked necks and ONE looks like the spittin' image of Goliath. I guess when the meat roosters got out for a 'few minutes' they partied harder than I thought. Good thing my other half has fallen in love with NNs.

Ha ha haaaa! Whoooops . . . . looks like you'll need to try again. OMG!

 

[alohachickens]

Aloha chicks at 4 days old.

Whoohoo! Looks like a nice, healthy hatch!

Update here: Aloha chicks are selling like HOTCAKES. Sold about umm, 80+ chicks last month and have a waiting list for the next group? OK, I'm only selling for $1 per chick, mind you. But fertility & hatch rate has been good, like 8+ out of 12 chicks are hatching. So that's still like $8 per dozen eggs - WAY better than I'd do selling as "eating eggs"!

I even had extra eggs, because I wanted to give a "gap" to raise a batch up for a couple weeks (for myself!) and the girls are laying like mad, short days and all. So I fostered most of those eggs out to local BYC'ers, who will hatch chicks and maybe give me back a nice hen. At least it's getting more Alohas into good homes.

Bad news, the chick thieves struck again. I had 18 babies that I got to about 2 weeks and decided I'd rather raise them than sell them (even though I did have buyers, figured I'd already fed them for two weeks so why not take it further.) The kids broke in and stole about 10 babies this time.

My new batch of chicks is from my biggest hens and a very colorful rooster, and these may turn out really, really nice. So I'm going to take them up to my friend Stephen's house. I got 33 babies including the ONE Buff Sussex egg! It hatched!!! Good luck telling it apart from the others, though. LOL. These are my BIGGEST girls so the babies from this pen are not teeny, the Buff chicks is blending in nicely at this point. The one other Buff Sussex chick, that the kids stole a few weeks ago, was huge, but I think it was a rooster. Maybe this time I got a hen chick and she's smaller? I don't know . . . we'll see if one suddenly grows larger or not? But I marked the egg and it's a shell now so the baby's in there somewhere!!!