The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

As promised, here are photos of the NN x Aloha cross chicks!

This roo is spectacular, if I was breeding for spotted Naked Necks! He has gorgeous yellow legs, is very tall, and at this point he's showing a tremendous amount of white.




Sometimes, however, the white does shed off. Unfortunately, as nice as he is, I don't need to spread the NN gene via a rooster. I was hoping to keep only the hens from this cross.

So here we go with what appear to be hens:


This chick is showing the coveted white color and bright yellow legs, but as you can see her spotting is much more subtle than the roo. I have no idea if it will shed off or not, but I won't be surprised if she ends up solid buff. However, she'll still stay in the program if that's the case. Her dad was so spotty, the odds are good the spots will come back if she's bred to a colorful rooster!


There aren't very many NN chicks in there, just a few as you can see in this pic.

However, I did notice that my neighbor, who bought some Aloha baby chicks from me back in Jan or Feb, has an extremely tall, very nice looking Aloha rooster wandering around her yard! Right now my small breeding pen is full of older chicks that are growing out, but I am thinking of repeating this experiment, and including the same two Buff Columbian hens, plus maybe the brown hen who showed a bit of Mottling, as she is clearly a carrier. Borrow the entire group and hatch out chicks to share with the neighbor.

That would give us a slightly different bloodline of NN x Aloha crosses, and while the father of this group had great color, that rooster was kind of small. This young roo of hers has both color AND size!

I also gave her a few of the NN chicks back. Hers would be older chicks, I gave her the first group of NN's hatched, in case they had any residual DNA from the non-Aloha roos on her property. But it will be interesting to see how hers turn out, too.

 

[alohachickens]

I just got done re-homing almost my entire adult flock. However, there are a few hens that I just couldn't part with!

Note, there are also four hens in this pen that will still be culled. I keep trying to give them to the neighbor on the West side (not the neighbor with the NN's, the other neighbor) but they keep flying back over! I will probably try two more times and if they don't stay over there, I will rehome them somewhere else.

SO . . . back to the five hens that I could not part with!

Yep, it is really not a good idea to have them here, because the whole idea was to start "fresh" with new stock to make sure it was totally disease free. But after six long years of breeding, to FINALLY have what you were working for, and then give it away? I just can't, at least, not until I hatch some chicks from this group.

OK, first a group shot of four of the ladies:


One of them you've seen before! I did a Blog post on her, but here's a current pic:


This is a true Aloha! I'd like to see more vivid yellow legs, they were yellow but it's already fading a bit since she has started laying.

Another group shot. You can see she's pretty big. Against the chain link behind the dark blue bowl is another Aloha x Sussex cross, and in front is another nice Aloha x Sussex cross. But I have two roos in this pen with BRIGHT YELLOW legs, so we are going to try and fix that!

Here is a Swedish x Aloha hen that I got back from kind BYC'ers. I gave them eggs and they returned this hen and a bunch of roos. So sometimes, this thing where I give away chicks and eggs to perfect strangers really does pay off. I'm SO happy with her and these boys!!!


Hubba hubba, right????


I wish he had a bit more white, but it's still much more than the average Swedish. And he has wonderful body type and great size. His chicks will be QUALITY. More than just pretty spots, they will have substance! And, check out those bright yellow legs! All of his chicks will carry that yellow leg gene. If I can get a rooster chick out of him and this hen with more spotting than he shows, it will be a huge boost to the program.

Here is his hatch-mate, a hen who is clearly part Swedsh, because she shows a teeny bit of a crest (!) but she has a lot more white than most Swedish Flower hens. Her body type is not as stout as a good Swedish, and I'm sure that is the Aloha part kind of affecting the body type. These were hatched from eggs that were getting too old, when I had the 'bator full. So I offered them up to whomever on BYC wanted them. And look what I got back! WOW.




And this rooster is the back-up just in case something happens to #1. He shows more Sussex, and his color is too dark, but his body is even "thicker" than the fist rooster. Luckily, the rooster that I like, (the lighter one) just happens to be dominant. It was tough to get photos of this guy because he hangs out in the fringes. These two guys were raised together, however, so luckily no fighting at all. Keeping him until I get chicks hatched from this pen. I learned the hard way to keep a spare rooster handy, just in case!

If I am blessed enough to have all these 5 ladies and 2 gents survive the summer heat, this Fall it will be hatching galore from these hens! I would love to build most of my new hen-flock from this base. Sadly, I will probably be forced to cull this flock by next December, when the chicks that are growing in my barn reach adulthood. because some of these did rub shoulders with the old flock that carried some kind of sniffles-bug. I'm hoping I can get them into a new "safe home" as an entire group. I would love to keep hatching from this stock for a good year or more!!! But if six months is all I get, that's still enough time to raise a LOT of chicks by this group.

 

[alohachickens]

This hen, what I do not like about her, is her thinner body type, and too-straight topline.

However, she is a HUGE improvement on the old type Ginger hens! She got all the color of her Momma hen, who had the best pattern I've ever seen on an Aloha. Plus she picked up improved size and better type. There is still a trace of "gamey" body type to her, and her legs are slate gray. However, the gray has an overlay of yellow, so she carries the yellow leg gene. She's a nice mix of spectacular first-generation Aloha color, and much improved size and type.

Her color is amazing, she's so spotty! Like perfect polka-dots all over!









This is the first time I've been able to share pics, because she is the most submissive and shy of all the hens. So when I had the "old" flock in there she was always in hiding! But she's been here all along and is now laying.

 

[alohachickens]

Remember this cutie pie?

She just got BETTER with age! This is my #1 absolute FAVORITE colored Aloha hen, EVER.











Makes me think of tropical sunsets! So unique and pretty!

Her size is a bit small. She's bigger and thicker than the polka-dot hen that I shared before, but not as big as the half Swedish and half Sussex hens. Very comparable to Leghorn hen size. Not Banty sized by any means. Here she is next to a true Banty sized hen that I have to re-home:


That little hen in front is a Banty sized Aloha with great color but awful size. (That's one I keep trying to give to the neighbor, it's a gorgeous hen but so tiny!)

Here she is with the larger hens for comparison:

Top left corner of photo, standing next to the red bowl. It's her favorite spot! LOL.

 

[alohachickens]

A couple of shots of an Aloha x Sussex cross hen. Needs yellow legs. But nice size on her. Very pretty gal.

 

[alohachickens]

Here's a couple interesting pictures from the Dun gene chicks:




They don't have spots yet, but the black has been replaced with Dun color. Here is the pen these chicks came from:

 

[a little chiken]

wow I like the look of some of those Aloha hens. I was thinking you were wanting more red and blk. I am glad you are not because most of the ones I got are very white and lots of spots already. I will try and get pics soon. If you do not want you NN roo I would be interested. Most of mine are ameraucana NN cross so I would love to pull in some unusual color and hopefully get colored eggs. a project I am working on. any NN you are not wanting to keep let me know and I am interested.

 

[a little chiken]

Here are some of the chicks

 

[a little chiken]

My son took those pics

 

[alohachickens]

Look at all the white on those chicks! So promising!