The Aloha Chicken Project

[Kev]

Kev, can you post info on the single comb NN line you had that laid blue eggs? I've got some blue egg layers growing out here - Cream Legbar cross- but the colors and size are "meh". Wondering if your line of blue egg laying NN's could be helpful? As if I need a side project - sigh!

OOps, completely forgot about your question, sorry.. as it is I got to run and pick up baby chicks a friend hatched for me.. have severe chicken dander allergies so I cannot have an incubator in the house.. Will try to remember this time.

 

[alohachickens]

PHOTOS - Speaking of "Silver" and removing it - here are photos of the new boy who is now 5 months and (thankfully) is filling out. He looked horrible last month and I was very concerned.

OK, so quick reminder, here's Dad and possible Moms. Dad was Light (Dun) Sussex with some Aloha in the background, Moms were Aloha hens:



I liked Dad's build and form. He also had yellow legs when younger though they have faded out now. Fast growing - SUPER fast growing - was double the size of other roosters his age.

Wanted to dump the Silver color and also hopefully add spots. There was a chance that Dad carried Mottling but of course no way to tell looking at him. So it was possible zero chicks would show mottling. However, with Mottled hens in the mix, figured at least I'd know the chick would carry it. Most of the chicks were Silver like him. Got about 5 or 6 that were solid buff / brown with maybe a stray mottled tip here or there. And then I had five Mottled chicks. One hen got the "creeping crud" that has been going around here - she recovered when treated with anitbiotics but it did affect her size and because I'm also breeding for vigor, I culled her to a pet home as a layer. (Because the rest of the chicks actually shrugged it off easily with no treatment.)

So that left me with four Mottled birds and I also kept one Silver hen because I really liked her stout form. Photos of those are on the Blog but mostly it was about trying to get ONE GOOD ROOSTER out of this white guy.

Here are a ton more pics, he's already trying to jump the girls although technically he's not fully grown for at least another month. I'm hoping I can hatch a few peeps out of him in June if I pen him with some ladies in May. Depends on if the girls will accept a teenage boy or not? I will give him a few girls in a small pen and see what happens.













Size: He is not as tall as the Swedish Flower mix boys, who are very leggy and have a lot of height, but he is super wide and carries a lot of breast meat on him.

My hope is the combo of the two lines will result in tall boys who have a bit more weight and are earlier to mature than the Swedish, who tend to grow a tall frame first, and then fill out the frame in 9-12 months. Swedish boys do get big eventually, but they seem to fill out very slowly.

This guy by comparison appears full grown even though he is just days shy of 5 months in these photos.

Here is the BLOG POST with photos of his siblings:

http://alohachickens.blogspot.com/2016/04/dun-project-update-part-3.html

 

[alohachickens]

These were the previous photos of him at about 3 1/2 to 4 months - and as you can see it was a pretty horrible stage. Look at that ridiculous neck. I was seriously worried that this nice looking chick was going to fizzle out at the last minute but luckily he turned it around! LOL.

 

[alohachickens]

Earlier picture show she DID have yellow legs previously, even though they are starting to fade.

 

[HEChicken]

Does your mentor have clear hackles on roosters and striped on hens very consistently or do they experience similar problem of 'mismarked' hackles as you are and have to set up pairings to account for this- example, clear hackles paired with striped to avoid the stock running all clears or all stripeds.

For sure! Actually, I should re-state what I originally said about it being a challenge. It is but....I've had a few surprises along the way as sometimes they mature differently than they appear to be feathering out in adolescence. I sold a pullet with no necklace to a friend. Now mind you, the pullet was about 4 months old when I sold her so I figured at that age she was old enough to know she was not going to meet my standards. My friend told me the hen later did grow a lovely necklace. Likewise, I had some much younger cockerels that had necklaces and I sold them to a guy who had driven some distance to get my line of NHs. I sold them cheap because I figured they were not going to be good quality birds. I lost track of them after that, but the following year I hatched some more and had two cockerels who initially had very visible necklaces. However as they grew up, they lost it altogether. I now have one of those boys as one of my flock roosters and he has NO necklace at all. So I now wonder about those cockerels I sold cheap a few years ago and wonder if they also grew up to be good examples of the breed.

So - it does appear that the inherent trait is for pullets to have it and cockerels to not have it. However sometimes it is necessary to grow them out in order to determine that, as when they are young their feathering is not a good indicator of their mature form.

 

[HEChicken]

I have kind of an interesting looking chick among the youngest batch. The chick started out brown and yellow but as you can see, the wings are feathering out to be black/white, while the remaining fuzz on the body is still brown. Sorry about the picture quality. I cropped it to make it so you could see the different colors but that reduced the overall quality.


I'm not seeing any sign of mottling yet but still, I'm curious to see what happens with this chick as it continues feathering out. I've never seen this combo of colors before.

 

[draye]

I have kind of an interesting looking chick among the youngest batch. The chick started out brown and yellow but as you can see, the wings are feathering out to be black/white, while the remaining fuzz on the body is still brown. Sorry about the picture quality. I cropped it to make it so you could see the different colors but that reduced the overall quality. I'm not seeing any sign of mottling yet but still, I'm curious to see what happens with this chick as it continues feathering out. I've never seen this combo of colors before.

Nice.

 

[Kev]

Kev, can you post info on the single comb NN line you had that laid blue eggs? I've got some blue egg layers growing out here - Cream Legbar cross- but the colors and size are "meh". Wondering if your line of blue egg laying NN's could be helpful? As if I need a side project - sigh!

History: did NN egg trade with someone through the mail. To my surprise, ALL of the eggs were blue. No tans, browns or even greens. Clear, solid blue. Thought it was a mistake/miscommunication but hatched them anyways.

To my surprise again.. all chicks hatched out NN.. but some also had black skin.. tried to get in touch with the persons to get history on stock but never got a response. So their history/parentage has to be forever a mystery. They are medium sized birds, sort of like legbars. with some leaning towards bulkier- surprisingly heavy when picked up.

side surprise- some of the chicks had totally bare necks. Something I had been trying to find/achieve with no luck.

outcrossed some of this stock with largefowl and created a line of tall, heavy NN laying tinted or green (and very large)eggs. Very nice birds. However as I got older.. could not keep up with the work for such a large flock(300+ chickens, 100+ peafowl plus finches, cage birds), went through several massive flock reductions(only two old peahens, trying to keep under 100 chickens. no cagebirds). Tried to save some semblance of some old lines or projects by merging them into one line.. unfortunately did this with the large NN and discovered too late that size and egg size were immediately lost in the cross generation.. and none of the LF pullets laid green eggs... worried all was lost forever, however one of the cockerels proved to be a carrier as one of his daughters produced last summer that is heavy(guessing 7-8 pounds?) and lays good sized green eggs.. She is partridge colored with fibro and is currently with a cornish x roo I got on spur of the moment as chick from feed store last fall.. never raised or used cornish x so will be interesting to see how their chicks grow out.

No pictures of the pullet but do have a sibling cockerel, picture seems to make him look small- he was weighed in at 9 pounds and has a nice long and meaty breast:



don't need another cockerel however am keeping him in case he has the blue egg gene and he does have genetics for big size too...

There is a grand daughter "pure original stock" true blue egger hen with this 16 pound roo:



He is out of slow broiler crosses and clearly shows there was cornish in his ancestry- very short but man, SO heavy. I love him as he is very nice non aggressive rooster and is not a hungry pig.. great traits! So far the first few eggs have been infertile.. hoping he manages to breed her eventually.. but am a bit concerned as the size and type difference is extreme.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
I find this very interesting - I want to have a side line of NN with green eggs, but am torn between just using my own Cream Legbars (bonus - already here!) vs. using Lavender Ameraucanas (I have one 2.5 wk old chick so far, guessing will be male but not sure, may get more - benefits - pretty, pretty colors with Isabella and porcelain possibilities, and also the pea comb reducing feathering further in NNs). Of course very interested in how one gets to BLUE in a NN (white egg layer must have been in the mix somewhere, I suppose - leghorn?). Opinions? @Kev , would you pick lavender or CL? (Pick lavender, pick lavender, pick lavender...

)

To make it more topical to this thread, I'll elaborate a bit - I know a goal was to reduce the black in Alohas for aesthetic reasons. Lavender could be another way to reduce it (at least visually) - I think Kev also posted about this before. Just thinking outside the box (I am freed from the specific Aloha goals because I'm just messing around in my own back yard - for instance, I'm going for white legs in all of mine. They're really elegant looking on my two pretty little Aloha NN girls, which I really have to say are probably the PRETTIEST chicks I've ever had...

)

- Ant Farm

 

[alohachickens]

History: did NN egg trade with someone through the mail. To my surprise, ALL of the eggs were blue. No tans, browns or even greens. Clear, solid blue. Thought it was a mistake/miscommunication but hatched them anyways.

To my surprise again.. all chicks hatched out NN.. but some also had black skin.. tried to get in touch with the persons to get history on stock but never got a response. So their history/parentage has to be forever a mystery. They are medium sized birds, sort of like legbars. with some leaning towards bulkier- surprisingly heavy when picked up.

side surprise- some of the chicks had totally bare necks. Something I had been trying to find/achieve with no luck.

outcrossed some of this stock with largefowl and created a line of tall, heavy NN laying tinted or green (and very large)eggs. Very nice birds. However as I got older.. could not keep up with the work for such a large flock(300+ chickens, 100+ peafowl plus finches, cage birds), went through several massive flock reductions(only two old peahens, trying to keep under 100 chickens. no cagebirds). Tried to save some semblance of some old lines or projects by merging them into one line.. unfortunately did this with the large NN and discovered too late that size and egg size were immediately lost in the cross generation.. and none of the LF pullets laid green eggs... worried all was lost forever, however one of the cockerels proved to be a carrier as one of his daughters produced last summer that is heavy(guessing 7-8 pounds?) and lays good sized green eggs.. She is partridge colored with fibro and is currently with a cornish x roo I got on spur of the moment as chick from feed store last fall.. never raised or used cornish x so will be interesting to see how their chicks grow out.

No pictures of the pullet but do have a sibling cockerel, picture seems to make him look small- he was weighed in at 9 pounds and has a nice long and meaty breast:

don't need another cockerel however am keeping him in case he has the blue egg gene and he does have genetics for big size too...

There is a grand daughter "pure original stock" true blue egger hen with this 16 pound roo:



He is out of slow broiler crosses and clearly shows there was cornish in his ancestry- very short but man, SO heavy. I love him as he is very nice non aggressive rooster and is not a hungry pig.. great traits! So far the first few eggs have been infertile.. hoping he manages to breed her eventually.. but am a bit concerned as the size and type difference is extreme.

The dark legs and dark color on the first guy not so helpful but hmm, this guy is interesting. Yellow legs and long tail and upright comb - all helpful to Aloha program.

Silver Columbian color not so awesome - but have managed to now breed that out so it's possible?

Overall I would say this guy could possibly be more helpful to blue egg laying Alohas than a Legbar. And totally more helpful than any kind of Ameraucana - as the comb and leg color is already fixed. What color is the grand daughter of the pure original stock? I know you don't have pics - but color of body and legs?

I would happily send you some NN Aloha eggs to hatch too if you think you could merge them with the blue egger line - just an offer.