The Aloha Chicken Project

[BrownEggsSouth]

I am quite serious, and have the space. I have nine acres.

I think I'll go with the shipping of eighteen eggs
And if none of them hatch I will wait for your parents to come down to orange beech

 

[alohachickens]

I am quite serious, and have the space. I have nine acres.

I think I'll go with the shipping of eighteen eggs
And if none of them hatch I will wait for your parents to come down to orange beech

OK, will send you a PM!

Note that if my parents fly like they say they will, it would be an entire YEAR most likely before I could ship Lives again . . . this Fall the eggs were infertile until November which meant no chicks hatched until almost December, and then it was too cold to ship most areas. Last year I didn't even get a Fall window for Live peeps because our heat continued, it was record heat into October!

My folks did say they were going to fly, not drive - so it's only a chance they will drive. If they do this cooking contest and fly, the luggage will be stuffed full of things they need, so there would be no room to try and bring eggs on the plane. I'm thinking they would only drive if they end up needing to bring too much stuff to go on the plane. The 3 days there and 3 days back on the road was pretty tough on them, last year. But maybe they will forget how miserable the drive was, and decide to try again, LOL.

So for Live chicks - it could be literally this week or wait a whole year to try again. (You are pretty far South though, so winter Live shipments would not be out of the question, luckily.)

If anyone reading this wants to try a batch of shipped chicks - April 4th or 5th is the potential ship date if someone wants to try and get started.

This batch hatching on the 4th is from some of my very best hens and roosters. It would be a great opportunity for someone across the country to get an Aloha flock going!

 

[alohachickens]

More photos:







- Ant Farm

Ant Farm, is it me, or did I send you a freaking giant box of ROOSTERS? I swear it was not intentional, that was just the NN peeps that hatched! LOL.

So far on the NN's here it's been a perfect 50 / 50 mix - I have one hen and one roo in an older grow out and one hen and one roo hatched after this group that I sent to you, in a batch that is about six weeks old now and just starting to feather out.

I'm thinking this one could possibly end up Mille! I sure hope so - just LOVE that color!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
It's been a little hard to guess at the gender for these (though I am very good at it in general with NNs), but there are 25 of them and they were in a 6x3 brooder, and they had gotten to the size where they needed to be split. So upon weighing last week, I put those I guessed were boys in the new 6x3 brooder and the possible girls back in the old one. It's almost even (maybe 13 boys, 12 girls). I have been looking at them every day, and I still think that's the case, with only a few "not sures". Weirdly, some of the little fully feathered ones have started looking a little like small boys (tiny red wattles), whereas at first I thought girls (like you hoped). At five weeks, I'm thinking the one above is a girl.

My favorite ones are the light orange and white ones with no black at all - there's a very handsome boy that looks like that (and he has a sister or two). And the almost all white fully feathered girl with the little orange cap - I may call her Angel. But overall, I sorta like them all when they're in a pile - so pretty!.

- Ant Farm

 

[alohachickens]

Here are pics of the two NN Alohas in one of my growout pens. (I have three batches of chicks growing out right now - the oldest was the previous pics.) This is the group behind them, and I tossed in a couple NN chicks to see how they turned out. After this batch, I have a bumper crop of 50 peeps, in the horse trailer "brooder" and they are just starting to feather out now. There are two Naked Necks in that group as well. Looks like a mostly solid Buff hen and some kind of calico rooster. The big batches of Naked Necks have gone to my neighbor and another friend, and I have two more friends who say they may want to raise NN Alohas, yay!


Above: Aloha NN pullet, with a super promising (BIG) regular Aloha hen behind her.


Pullet in front of the NN is a Buff Sussex / Aloha cross. The Buff Sussex momma to this pullet is HUGE and the daddy was a Swedish / Aloha cross rooster.


Rooster is growing out nice, but overall looks very "Speckled Sussex-y" with the light legs and the dark body color. Wish he had either lighter brown or gold, or the yellow legs, but keeping him around until I grow out a better one. I should have kept a back up NN rooster last year so trying to make up for the mistake I made not keeping enough boys to grow out.




More pics of the pullet. Love her yellow legs and light body color. Size is lacking, she's going to be fairly small (Leghorn size) and verdict is still out on how the overall mottling will turn out when she is grown. Still have 2 months before we get any sense of her "final" color.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Ant Farm, is it me, or did I send you a freaking giant box of ROOSTERS? I swear it was not intentional, that was just the NN peeps that hatched! LOL.

So far on the NN's here it's been a perfect 50 / 50 mix - I have one hen and one roo in an older grow out and one hen and one roo hatched after this group that I sent to you, in a batch that is about six weeks old now and just starting to feather out.

I'm thinking this one could possibly end up Mille! I sure hope so - just LOVE that color!

I've been sleep deprived lately - caught up a lot on sleep last night and yesterday. Walked in to tend the chicks this morning, and OMG, YOU'RE RIGHT!!!!! They're all turning into BOYS!!!!!

Out of 25, I think I may only have 6 or 7 girls. Even Angel is looking like a boy now.

 

[alohachickens]

I've been sleep deprived lately - caught up a lot on sleep last night and yesterday. Walked in to tend the chicks this morning, and OMG, YOU'RE RIGHT!!!!! They're all turning into BOYS!!!!!

Out of 25, I think I may only have 6 or 7 girls. Even Angel is looking like a boy now.

And *this* is why it's always better to start out with a big box of baby chicks - as many peeps as you can - on any straight run order! LOL.

I guess a few more weeks will tell - LOL. The good news is that if you have an incubator, just 2-4 colorful hens and one colorful rooster will give you oodles of spotty peeps later on.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
Yeah, once I got over my freak out, I realized that this might be a good thing, as my space is limited anyhow. It's just a drag that some of the prettiest ones are boys, and I am really only going to be able to keep one for breeding.

I'm hoping to put a keeper boy with perhaps the big S&G NN girls (broiler type NNs), and the girls with either an S&G boy or one of my GNH x NN boys. Get some size in on them...

- Ant Farm

 

[alohachickens]

Yeah, once I got over my freak out, I realized that this might be a good thing, as my space is limited anyhow. It's just a drag that some of the prettiest ones are boys, and I am really only going to be able to keep one for breeding.

I'm hoping to put a keeper boy with perhaps the big S&G NN girls (broiler type NNs), and the girls with either an S&G boy or one of my GNH x NN boys. Get some size in on them...

- Ant Farm

Excited about the GNH x NN mixed in there, and I can't wait to see how the S&G NN's grow out - will be neat to see the compared against the Aloha NN's!

 

[draye]

@alohachickens

You ever have I've to feather in line this:

3 1/2 weeks old.


Here's one from a week before:

And one from the week before that at about 1 week. Old.

This chick started out at hatch as a dark color almost black with a reddish brown colored covering over the blackish color.