Which ones tend to have the most desired color?Some are spangled where others Mille Fleur and then some others are calico and even done are actually mottled.
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Which ones tend to have the most desired color?Some are spangled where others Mille Fleur and then some others are calico and even done are actually mottled.
I'd say the ones with the most white and / or colors not found in other breeds - in other words the ones most different from Jubilee Orps and Speckled Sussex (both in one color - mahogany - with small white spangles.)Which ones tend to have the most desired color?
I'd say the ones with the most white and / or colors not found in other breeds - in other words the ones most different from Jubilee Orps and Speckled Sussex (both in one color - mahogany - with small white spangles.)
She is huge, orange with bold white spotting. This hen is young and just started laying a couple months ago. Some Sussex will spot up like this by 2-3 years old, but she's shy of one year.
The hen to her right is pure Sussex - Buff Sussex and Speckled Sussex mixture. Note the Sussex hen of about same age has much less spotting, and pink legs, while Aloha hen has more spotting and yellow legs.
This is such exciting news! I can't wait to see if we get the recessive red colors!Well Sommer, I finally have a little news to report. After ONLY 3 years of working on this project, I am collecting eggs to go to the next stage
I'm sure you remember the history of this project for me so I won't recap. Two years ago I got 3 hens and last year 3 cockerels. Those cockerels have grown up to really impress me. They are wonderful foragers and spent all winter out in the pasture, going great distances from the coop, foraging for their food, rarely returning to eat, even when they knew I was filling the feeder. They always returned at night to roost though. Quite often they hopped the fence into coyote territory and I worried I would wind up in spring with nothing to show but all three have survived, indicating they are also quite savvy. But the best part is two of them have amazing speckling on their chests - I think you will be pleased. None are large roosters but they've matured with decent body type and I'm very happy with them. (I know, I know, pics, and I've tried. But they are super skittish thanks to the leghorn influence and even with max zoom, the pics I've taken have not shown them well.
Last week I went to the coop after dark and got leg bands on both the hens and the roosters so I can tell them apart. I've also rated them with the best hen and rooster sharing a leg band color, second best and so on. Then I took the second-best rooster and all three hens and put them in a breeding pen. I am now collecting eggs from them and as soon as I have an incubator full I'll be starting it up. I wasn't sure they were laying when I put them in the pen. All of my birds stopped laying sometime in December and I didn't start getting eggs again until late in January and had no idea if these three were among those laying. It turns out all three were laying and yesterday I got 3 eggs from that pen!!!
The incubator will only contain half Aloha eggs this time around as I also have another breeding pen I'm collecting eggs from. However as soon as I start it up, my plan is to trade out the rooster who is currently in this pen with number one, and collect another incubator full (it only holds 20 eggs so don't get too excited). I will set those as soon as the first batch hatches.
I'm hoping with roughly 30 chicks from the two hatches, that we'll see some decent chicks. I'm super excited to FINALLY be making some progress.
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This is really neat - thanks for sharing!!!
I'm excited at the possibilities I may have here. I already have my little aloha NN from you (one of which is is a fully feathered Aloha chick). I have five Speckled Sussex pullets, a feed store impulse buy. They are small, but two have a lot of white mottling (the others are taking more time to develop) - I believe as they grow and get "more white", these two WOULD be the sort of SS that is not desirable for pure SS (leading to too much white as they age), but would be great for this project.
They are approaching POL, and their paddock is next to a large, quick-growing (as a chick) black-tailed red Naked Neck (Tank) who already adores them, they will be a family (building their tractor coop this weekend). I also have on hand a trio of Cream Legbars (with 13 hatched babies in the brooder at 2.5 weeks).
And to top it off, I am on the list to receive German New Hampshire chicks in April!
So I will be combing back through your descriptions and goals (and try to wrap my head around the genetics of this again). I may put the German NH with the Aloha NNs to gain some size (I got them to cross into my other NNs as well).
So much fun!!!!!
- Ant Farm