The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

I'm excited as well....only 17 days until hatch

One thing I learned in going to this next step.....the "first generation" Exchequer Leghorns/NH hens are laying HUGE eggs. Now granted they are 2 year olds so they are bigger than they probably were last year but the size is impressive which bodes well to getting good sized chicks out of them. (And maybe the fact I had to wait until the hens were 2 year olds in order to get to this step will wind up going in our favor in terms of the size of the next generation.) The hens themselves are larger and bigger bodied than their mothers. The roosters look decent but are not huge. Still, I'm hopeful I'll see a size increase in this generation and the large eggs really help. The eggs are a very light brown and the hens appear to be laying consistently. I got three eggs again yesterday out of three hens. I switched out roosters after collecting enough to fill the incubator and I am now collecting eggs again to start as soon as this batch is done. I wound up setting more eggs than my incubator technically holds so instead of turning on the auto turner, I turn manually, since I have eggs sitting on top of eggs. My theory is that surely not ever egg will be fertile and develop so at the 7-day candling, I will remove enough eggs to be able to put the extras in the tray and turn the turner on.

I'll keep you posted though there won't really be any news now until hatch day

I'm glad these crosses are laying well, as I think your original Exchequer stock was flawed - my chicks hatched from that same hatchery at the same time also had issues.

Historically I found the Exchequers to be the MOST reliable and productive layers, although their eggs were fairly small.

You probably won't find a big size increase in the chicks. They will (most likely) end up half way in between Leghorn and NHR in size. I've personally found that it takes the "bump" up to 3/4 "Big Chicken" to increase size.

There is a fascinating dog breeding study out there somewhere, that demonstrates this phenomenon. Since cutting off puppy's tails (docking) is kind of a sad thing to do, a breeder decided to try and introduce the "bob tail gene" into Boxers. He did this by crossing CORGIS. Of course the first generation was a mess of mutts, but what was crazy, is when they took a pure bred show quality boxer and crossed it with the mutts, the resulting puppies looked like Boxers again! The outside breed practically disappeared again! But they were able to find a pup with the bob tail, and did one more cross, and eventually the "natural bobtail" dogs were allowed back in the registry.

It was a fascinating scientific study. But the thing that was so interesting to me, is how the 3/4 mark made such a tremendous difference.

I've found in my chicken breeding that 50/50 small, light, gamey chicken crossed to big, stout, heavy chicken makes something in-between, but it's the NEXT cross that makes the difference. If a chicken is 75% "itty bitty Aloha" the size stays small. I have to breed it up to 75% big chicken bloodline to see real size improvement. Which has been VERY hard to do while retaining not just a "few" teeny spots but to do while trying to carry the super extreme mottling seen in the Aloha.

I have brought in big chicken from the start. After the Exchequer and Game, I brought in Sussex, hatchery NHR, Orpington mix, Buff Rock, Swedish Flower, more Sussex, Buff Sussex, another hatchery NHR, another hatchery Sussex, now Turken. And yet, the Alohas tend to revert back to the size of Exchequers if you don't keep adding more "outside" large breeds.

Going to keep it up - the part Light Sussex chicks in particular are VERY large. The baby rooster from that group of chicks hatched in mid November, he's already bigger than the pure hatchery Turken, who really is a good sized hen. And that baby boy is going to continue to grow for at least two months! I can't wait until he's ready to breed, hopefully in mid May!

Going to keep that up, and I'm even considering ordering a few new "super sized" Light Sussex chicks from the Sussex breeder in Colorado. Though breeding that Light Sussex color out and adding spots sure is a challenge! LOL!

 

[HEChicken]

Good info! And yes, that does sound like a fascinating study on the boxers. On a related note, I have Karakachan LGDs and the female is a natural bobtail.

I said I wouldn't have news for 17 days but I couldn't help myself and candled yesterday. They were only on day 4 so I went in to it thinking "if I don't see anything yet, I'm not going to be disappointed". My brooding room is in a windowless basement room (pitch dark) and I have a very good flashlight. And I can now report 100% development

That's a long way from 100% hatch but I am just thrilled that fertility is so good. A friend recently gave me some info on rooster testes size that indicates the testes shrink up to tiny over the winter and get larger again as the days get longer. After seeing that I questioned whether I had separated them too early in the year to get good fertility so was thrilled as I moved from egg to egg to see clear spider veining in all of them.

 

[alohachickens]

Here is the "bobtail boxer" study, if anyone wants to read.

Goal was to introduce one single trait (naturally short tail) into a breed that had tails docked traditionally, as some parts of Europe ban tail docking.

http://bobtailboxers.com/the-cross-corgi-ex-boxer

There is a white 3/4 Boxer female that ended up looking nearly pure bred, and her pups resulted in a strain of what are now "show" dogs in Europe!

This also can help explain why using too much Speckled Sussex results in Aloha chicks that look like lousy Speckled Sussex. It's important in Alohas, that if you want them to not look like really terrible Speckled Sussex, to make sure you add enough NHR, Buff Sussex, or "other stuff" to create something "new" because if you use about 3/4ths of any particular breed, it will revert back to that parent breed.

Although I have to say, a red German New Hampshire with white spots would be pretty fabulous to see.

Anyway, at the 50/50 mix blend, babies tend to show traits of both parents, and at 75% of one particular "pure" breed, it seems they tend to look like flawed versions of the parent breed.

 

[alohachickens]

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

I may be interested in getting some hatching eggs back from you, someday, if you'd be so kind. Especially if you have Cream Legbar crosses that carry the Mottling gene someday.

I think adding the blue / green egg gene to the Alohas would be the "icing on the cake" but I've had such a brutal time just getting them to look good, I have not been ready to tackle that, as I know it will be another nightmare of a challenge, LOL.

Additionally, German NHR / Legbar would also be helpful - towards adding size and removing the crest of the Legbar. If chicks from that cross inherited the blue egg gene, it would be a matter of removing barring and adding spots, but the German NHR would warm up the Legbar color and add size, which would be very helpful over "pure" Legbars.

I did try early on adding the blue egg gene to Alohas by using the Ameraucana, and it failed. I did succeed in producing a blue-mottled blue egg laying chicken. However, the traits such as pea combs, muffs, and slate legs of the Ameraucana were too strong. By the time I bred those *unwanted* traits out, it also removed the blue egg gene.

However, it proved to be quite easy to add the spots to the Ameraucana, and my friend used the crosses to produce basically Mottled Easter Eggers at her house.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
Sure - and those are really neat ideas!! (My head is swimming with options now!)

- Ant Farm

 

[alohachickens]

Sure - and those are really neat ideas!! (My head is swimming with options now!)

- Ant Farm

How about you work towards a blue-egg laying Calico Turken, and I'll add the neck feathers back in - LOL!

 

[alohachickens]

I am NOT an expert on the Blue Egg gene and just starting to understand sex link via barred feathers -

So let me preface this with a disclaimer that I could be WRONG on this info!

But let me try to predict what would happen, if you used what you have there, or are hoping to have when the German New Hamps arrive, to try and create Mottled Turkens who *also* lay blue eggs.

To my best understanding:

German NHR / Legbar cross - I think the F1 generation, all chicks would lay blue eggs, as I think the "blue egg gene" is dominant, and Legbars (having both parents carry the gene) are homozygous for the blue egg trait. I am fairly sure a Legbar crossed to any other breed will give you a baby hen that will lay blue or green eggs.

The chicks would be bigger than Legbars, more red than Legbars, and lay blue eggs.


Bielefelders were created using German New Hampshires, so this kind of what a German New Hampshire might look like with added baring on the feathers.

Then, let's say you get a Mottled (Calico) Turken rooster from the 7 chicks that were hatched there, from the eggs I sent you, and you kept him. Take that Calico NN (Aloha NN) rooster, and cross him with the NHR / Legbar hens, who, we are assuming, will all lay blue eggs.

Keep the hens, which would now be half NN Aloha, 1/4 Legbar, 1/4 German NHR. Roosters - I don't know if you'd want to keep those or not, it depends?

Only half the hens would carry the blue egg gene. You'd need to wait until they were 6 months old and start laying to find out who is who. Keep the hens who lay green eggs. All would carry Mottling, but none would show it. They would most likely look like plain brown laying hens, anywhere from dark to light red, with a black tail. Some may have a stray white feather indicating they carry Mottling. Thanks to the Turken blood, half would be Naked Necks. Yellow legs would be very likely. They would be very boring looking hens - LOL. But probably really good layers of green eggs, so practical, at least!

Now, this is where it would get difficult. The roosters from this same cross - which would be one quarter Legbar, one quarter German NHR, one half Aloha Naked Neck - it is impossible to find out if roosters carry the blue egg gene, because they don't lay eggs, they are roosters! LOL. Every rooster would have a 50/50 chance of carrying blue egg gene. You could either test breed - which is a very LONG process - and mate him to other hens who don't lay blue eggs, and see if the hen chicks from that cross, eventually lay green eggs. That means you'd have to wait for each boy to mature, put with hens, collect eggs 30 days later, incubate for 3 weeks, and then wait for those chicks to be old enough to lay. If he carries the blue egg gene, half of his baby girls would lay blue or green eggs. If all of his baby girls laid brown eggs, then he's a bust, get rid of him. This test breeding process would take about 8 months at the very earliest! Ouch. More like a year, if you prepare yourself for "hiccups" along the way. And you'd have to keep him alive through this time, so if you want to do this test process, a side pen for the boys and leg bands would be a good idea.

But for argument's sake, let's say you did this ridiculous amount of work to test breed, and got a rooster who you now know carries the blue egg gene, plus Mottling. You then put him in with your hens that lay blue eggs - his sisters basically - and the result would be 1/2 Mottled chicks, and blue eggs on 3/4ths of the babies (if my genetics are right.) You could then pick out the chicks that have traits you like, (such as spotting or Naked Necks) and then wait for the eggs to start. Cull anyone who is not a blue egg layer. Most would lay blue eggs. so it would not be very many hens culled. By removing the non-blue layers, now you have chosen the 3 out of 4 chicks who lay blue eggs. 1 out of 3 of those blue egg laying hens would be HOMOZYGOUS for blue eggs, and carry two copies of the gene, though there would be no way of knowing who she is? (But she would pass the blue egg gene to all of her babies no matter who the dad was, and create a stronger blue-egg gene flock.)

So at that point, you could take your "inbred" (line bred is the more proper term) Mottled Blue Egg Laying Turkens, and outcross to a new rooster if you want, and rest assured that over half of the chicks from that cross would lay blue eggs. Do note when I say "inbred" that this brother / sister cross would not be anything to worry about, as the parent stock, being a mix of several breeds such as German New Hamshire, Legbar, and Aloha - would not be very closely related to start with. You could seriously "inbreed" this blend for a few generations with little to worry about! Just wanted to clarify that this practice of "line breeding" is common in animal breeding and is not anything to be concerned with until you get several generations in. But as you picked out the chicks from this blend, you likely will see things you'd want to improve upon even more.

At that point you'd introduce a new friend. Maybe it would be the cross of your Naked Neck rooster, Tank, over your Sussex girls? That cross would produce a nice big NN rooster who carries spots, but has no barring. That could be crossed over Mottled Blue Egg hens to create bigger chicks, half or more of whom would lay blue eggs, and half would be Mottled as well. (This would be 2 or 3 years in the future, so Tank's kids with the Sussex hens would be totally grown at this point.)

So there's a loose plan, step by step, on how to create Mottled Blue Egg Laying Turkens. If it sounds like a lot of work - yes, of course it would be.

A less scientific but more practical way to breed for the blue egg gene is to always keep hens who lay blue eggs. Eventually the gene will permeate the flock, via the girls, and over time the trait will become dominant and eventually (over the course of many years - would take probably 3-4 years at the very least) if you hatch a rooster out of one of the blue eggs and put him over the hens, the blue egg gene will "lock in" and all of your layers will carry it.

In other words, what you have there or will soon have there - German NHR, Legbar, Aloha NN, pure Naked Neck, and Speckled Sussex - is ALL the ingredients to make blue egg laying Calico NN's. You literally have all the genes you need.

Most likely, due to the Sussex, they would be medium red brown, to dark brown, with smallish spots. Similar to Speckled Sussex, but with Naked Necks and laying blue eggs. (You would not get Buff Mottled or Mille, as the Red of New Hampshires and mahogany of Speckled Sussex is dominant over Buff base colors.)

Breeding chickens or any other animal is not always about "knowing" the most, it's about DOING the most. Most people do not have the patience or persistence to keep breeding and breed and raising batches of chicks, sifting through them year after year, looking for the gems. I could have reached my Aloha goal much sooner if I'd had more knowledge of chicken genetics when I started this project, but no matter how much you know, it can't replace the "doing" part of simply raising buckets of chicks to adulthood and looking for the traits you need.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Ha ha ha!!!

I would predict, if you worked diligently, that you could reach this goal within 3 years. Provided you don't suffer a catastrophic loss of the breeding stock, which is why I try to give away Aloha chicks to everyone I know. I think of those "gift chickens" as the back up files for my data base of chicken DNA. Ha ha ha. If something happened here, I'd gather up Alohas from any friends who might have eggs to spare, and start over from that point.

 

[Kev]

It's very true figuring out the O gene(for blue eggshell) single combed carriers is not so easy. (have had single combed blue/green egger NN for 20+ yrs)

I never tried to make a line pure for O.. just didn't try to. That said, I did want to maintain it because the combination of single comb and colored eggs were uncommon before the legbar/isbar imports. Now that the single comb colored egger mixes are 'everywhere' now it does kind of make me feel my lines are "pointless"..

Anyways what I pretty much did was raise a few more pullets as insurance against totally losing the O gene and gave a slightly higher preference to keep the colored egg layers when culling.

I think if numbers is a concern, this might be the best way to go- basically do one time cross with legbar then hatch/keep a few more pullets from the colored eggs from each generation and use the typiest colored egger pullet to breed with whatever project line- back to a preferred calico/Aloha type roosters in this case. That way it could be possible for a single pen to sort of have 'two projects in one'... an Aloha pen with a couple colored eggers in it.

Also, in those kind of projects, it is best to expect colored eggs to come in various shades of green. Normally it is just about impossible to achieve true blue, no hint of green after crossing with or deliberately breeding with brown/tinted eggers. My original colored eggers laid true blue but due to crossing since then, rarely got a blue egger again(do have two right now though but they are mostly of the original stock 'blood').

 

[alohachickens]

It's very true figuring out the O gene(for blue eggshell) single combed carriers is not so easy. (have had single combed blue/green egger NN for 20+ yrs)

I never tried to make a line pure for O.. just didn't try to. That said, I did want to maintain it because the combination of single comb and colored eggs were uncommon before the legbar/isbar imports. Now that the single comb colored egger mixes are 'everywhere' now it does kind of make me feel my lines are "pointless"..

Anyways what I pretty much did was raise a few more pullets as insurance against totally losing the O gene and gave a slightly higher preference to keep the colored egg layers when culling.

I think if numbers is a concern, this might be the best way to go- basically do one time cross with legbar then hatch/keep a few more pullets from the colored eggs from each generation and use the typiest colored egger pullet to breed with whatever project line- back to a preferred calico/Aloha type roosters in this case. That way it could be possible for a single pen to sort of have 'two projects in one'... an Aloha pen with a couple colored eggers in it.

Also, in those kind of projects, it is best to expect colored eggs to come in various shades of green. Normally it is just about impossible to achieve true blue, no hint of green after crossing with or deliberately breeding with brown/tinted eggers. My original colored eggers laid true blue but due to crossing since then, rarely got a blue egger again(do have two right now though but they are mostly of the original stock 'blood').

Kev, do you have any photos of your current single comb blue egg layer?

And do note when I say "blue egg layer" I'm talking about the pigment on the egg or not being on the egg - as in I do understand that the egg may be anything from pale blue to olive green depending on how much brown is added in there, LOL! But it's easier / less confusing to just say "blue egg layer" - as of course the shades of green are just blue + brown pigment.

While a pale blue egg would be my favorite, I think a green egg would still be PERFECT for Alohas.

Kev, if your single-comb blue eggers are bigger than Lebars and not-barred they may be more worthwhile for me to try and use those to add color to the eggs? Unless the legs are slate - I've had a horrible time removing the gray legs, from that attempt I did early on to try and introduce the blue egg gene via Ameraucanas. Took FOREVER to breed out the muffs, gray legs, and pea combs. That Ameraucana "type" is SUPER dominant!!!

Lemme see the ones you bred, Kev! I didn't know you had single comb blue egg layers. Show them off, and tell us how you did it and how long it took.

 

[draye]

@alohachickens
I didn't know you were interested in maintaining a blue egg gene.

I have one NN hen hen that lays a green egg.
So far I haven't gotten one with a single comb to lay a green egg though. I seem to lose it on the 3/4 cross getting my NN's.

Here she is. I'm not sure if she's a silver or not:

She may carry the mottling gene: her daddy was the Salmon NN rooster that carried mottling gene.

Right now she's in with:

He's a nephew of hers. Out of a half sister that laid a brown egg. He sports a pea comb, trying to see if I can get more green egg layers.

If I can get some of her daughters that lay green then maybe I can cross them to Mr. Bo Spangles and carry that on.