The Aloha Chicken Project

[Fire Ant Farm]

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As Draye said, Dunlap (and S&G) are hatcheries, not breeders.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Can't sleep, worried about growouts and housing, so I got up and started looking at data and photos (today was the Aloha weight and photo day - week 8). I am going to need to do an early cull of some of the boys I know I am not keeping (fully feathered or tiny, and in one case, a biter), so that I can better manage their housing. Here are the main contenders to keep - will likely only keep one or possibly two. @alohachickens - can you comment on the feathering and give your opinion?

The boy with the dun is still the sweetest and biggest (at 40.42oz at 8 weeks), and he's definitely a keeper. He tends to sit on the scale, but has yellow legs:


This is #2 (yellow leg):


This is #3 (yellow leg):


This is #4 (white leg, second largest behind Pretty Boy):


These two are possible reserves (may let them grow a bit more before culling):




Any comments?

- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

Can't sleep, worried about growouts and housing, so I got up and started looking at data and photos (today was the Aloha weight and photo day - week 8). I am going to need to do an early cull of some of the boys I know I am not keeping (fully feathered or tiny, and in one case, a biter), so that I can better manage their housing. Here are the main contenders to keep - will likely only keep one or possibly two. @alohachickens - can you comment on the feathering and give your opinion? The boy with the dun is still the sweetest and biggest (at 40.42oz at 8 weeks), and he's definitely a keeper. He tends to sit on the scale, but has yellow legs: This is #2 (yellow leg): This is #3 (yellow leg): This is #4 (white leg, second largest behind Pretty Boy): These two are possible reserves (may let them grow a bit more before culling): Any comments? - Ant Farm

The top two are my favorites! An alternative is number three. #3 looks to have a little more white in him. I know your like ne, cannot keep too many cockerels due to space and the cost if growing then out. I've got to go they mine and do a little more culling. I even have a pullet that looks like she needs to be culled ( something I hat doing, culling pullets), but she is really quite a bit smaller than her hatch mates and after all I need the bigger and best kbe as I'm shooting for nice sized birds. Good luck in in decisions. I need to get sone shoots if my Calico/Aloha babies.

 

[alohachickens]

Can't sleep, worried about growouts and housing, so I got up and started looking at data and photos (today was the Aloha weight and photo day - week 8). I am going to need to do an early cull of some of the boys I know I am not keeping (fully feathered or tiny, and in one case, a biter), so that I can better manage their housing. Here are the main contenders to keep - will likely only keep one or possibly two. @alohachickens - can you comment on the feathering and give your opinion?

The boy with the dun is still the sweetest and biggest (at 40.42oz at 8 weeks), and he's definitely a keeper. He tends to sit on the scale, but has yellow legs:


This is #2 (yellow leg):


This is #3 (yellow leg):


This is #4 (white leg, second largest behind Pretty Boy):


These two are possible reserves (may let them grow a bit more before culling):




Any comments?

- Ant Farm

Are these guys listed in order of how strong they are as contenders?

I do encourage you to save at least 2 boys until adulthood. Raise them together, so they can share one pen (hopefully!) because I don't want you to make the mistake that I did last year (And other years as well.)

Last year, I kept this FABULOUS baby boy. His Mom was half Buff Sussex half Aloha - a big solid buff hen (no spots because when you cross Solid x Mottled the spots go away that generation.) Dad was a huge Aloha Turken / Speckled Sussex (private breeding jumbo Sussex) boy. Dad was big and too dark, but had little spotting, but carried. Looked like a Turken version of a Speckled Sussex.

Baby picked up the recessive spotting and showed both white from either parent. Also got the recessive yellow legs. And just for fun, some Dun too. He was a bit dark but that was the only downside to him.

So this guy was over half "Jumbo Chicken" (very large private breeder stock Sussex) and the other parts Turken and Aloha. I'd say at least 2/3rds "BIG" stock. I was super excited to have not just color, but the size as well, and figured he'd really help improve the size of my non-NN regular Alohas:


Unfortunately, he was so massive in body size, that he broke his leg leaping down from a very tall roost. It started to mend, and then re-broke and he passed. My "barn chickens" roost in the rafters, and that hasn't been a problem with the Alohas, as they are Leghorn weight, but this boy and his Dad were both very heavy bodied "meaty" types and both broke their legs from the jump.

I did not keep a #2 pick Naked Neck, and old Robin was too small to improve the current NN batch, so this year there was no dedicated NN pen as I did not think I could "move forward" and truly IMPROVE the stock that I had here. Surely everything that came of Robin and his sisters, would be simply more of the same. Colorful, but kind of small Naked Neck Alohas. I felt like it was a waste of my (very limited) breeding pens to not make forward progress so I used the two breeding pens I have here on trying to improve the regular Alohas this year.

Remember this boy? Shared him just recently. Everything was doing great with this batch of chicks, then they caught some bug (mild sniffles) probably from wild birds as they have been free ranging in a small coop away from the other chickens, and allowed to run free in the yard during the day. I treated with Tylan and everyone bounced back in no time, so I thought, but then I found him dropped dead the other day in the yard. He seemed fine the day before. Totally odd. His weight was good and he was not sniffling or showing any signs of distress before this happened. They had been off Tylan for about 3-4 days already.


He was only a temporary roo until something better hatched (with yellow legs and lighter body colors) but shoot, he was still a nice boy, and was pushing 3-4 months!

So please learn from my mistakes! It's a pain to keep a lot of boys but I'd recommend keeping three at this point to grow out ffor a while longer, and then cull down to two. Usually if raised together the boys will get along OK with one guy making a bid for #1 and the other guy only gets action when they free-range and he can sneak a hen on the side when #1 isn't looking.

ALL of your boys look great at this stage, which makes it really tough. Usually I work both ways - start by picking out the ones you like the LEAST, and then pick out the one you like the BEST. Now check out the "middle group" and do it again, pick out your best and your worst from there. Then, do it again. That's how I pare down both roos and hens. It's too hard to just pick out the best because there are many with some good qualities that can be improved on so I attack it from both sides.

There is nothing more devastating than getting your rooster to that "almost old enough" age of 4-5 month and having them die. So I'd recommend keeping at least one backup as long as possible, since all of these boys are looking pretty decent.

Disregard this advice if one boy is CLEARLY the "winner" and the rest of the boys are garbage. This is only if you have an abundance of nice stock.

#2 and #3 are showing a lot of white (notice the white "cap" on the top of the heads) and remember these guys will drop their spotting like crazy right at 4-5 moths.

See this example in my Blog here:

http://alohachickens.blogspot.com/2015/04/

My casual observance is that having a lot of white on the top of the head - a white "cap" in Turkens - is a good sign. In terms of amount of spotting one may see when the chick is grown. But that's not 100% yet, just something I'm starting to try and pay attention too. If it bears out on this group that I'm raising next I'll let you know as it would sure be nice to have clues when the chicks are younger!

I really like the overall look of #2 and #3.

#4 has gorgeous light base color there. However the comb size is pathetic - looks hen like - might want to double check for pointy saddle feathers that should be coming in soon on the boys. (I like a big comb on my boys because it makes the youngsters so much easier to sex as babies. In cold climates it's a frostbite issue but no problems with that in AZ or TX.)

Second to bottom also has great masculine face type and well distributed white spotting at this stage.

Overall expect the white to do dramatic crazy things the last couple of months! If you get one that "holds" the white to adulthood you are WAY ahead of the game! They drop spots like crazy right at the very end and it is so incredibly frustrating, LOL.

Sorry I'm not of more help - I kind of like them all. #2 and #3 would be two I'd hold back if this was my group. (But I can't see size based on these photos, so I'm not sure how much noticeably bigger the two heaviest ones are than the others? If they are WAY bigger than the rest, that size difference would influence me for sure!)

Wish I had the problem of too many GOOD boys - still struggling to get a few more good guys hatched down here. Have a couple of boys in the "ugly" stages and waiting to see if they pull out of it in a couple months or not. Right now they look gangly and out of proportion and a total mess. LOL. Sometimes you are stuck in "wait and see" mode for a ridiculously long time.

 

[alohachickens]

Fire Ant, is there anyone in your area - via BYC "Where are you" forum - who you may be able to set up with one of these boys and a couple of hens? Or a chicken keeping neighbor you can pass a few onto? Maybe the "runty" girls and an extra Aloha boy? That way if something happened (let's hope not but since it could) if given to someone you can contact again there is another way to have a back up plan in place.

This is why I give away Aloha chicks to any of my friends out here who will take them. I have gone back and been like "WOW that rooster / hen turned out better than I thought!" and they have loaned or given them back for the program.

Just a thought! Any neighbors with chickens? Sometimes I offer them girls and then shove a promising boy in the mix just to make them earn those hens, LOL.

They grow it out and later if it looks good, I can snag it. If it doesn't grow out nice, then we can sell or cull the rooster if it is annoying them, or they keep it if they like it.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

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To clarify, I have EIGHTEEN boys!

(Including all but one of the little nn ones you included, perversely.) Because there are so many, I don't have the room to house and grow out the ones that I'm definitely not keeping, so I wanted to check on my selections for the potential keepers. These that I posted are the ones I plan to keep, in order of my preference - I will keep at least two, maybe three, into adulthood.

I actually weeded down just the same way as you recommend - first the ones I definitely am not keeping (fully feathered or too small), then from the top, the ones I like by weight and appearance. The middle ones are #4, 5, &6. I'll watch them all grow out a little longer before culling them. The one with the small comb was initially thought to be a pullet, and is in with them (as are a number of other boys) - the other 5 are together in the all-cockerel brooder. So I can try to keep him and hope he won't get attacked as a newcomer.

Is the reason you don't prefer my #1 because there's less white on his head? Because he's my favorite... (Although I really like #2 as well - and he is protective of the girls in the next brooder when I'm trying to catch them for weighing, so he may be a good protector/flock leader with the ladies, which is important to me.

Curious - I'm not keeping this boy, but I'm curious what you think of his coloring:






I was planning to keep all the girls except I'm actually considering culling one - she's got very little mottling, and is quite frankly a little bit of a nut job, very jumpy, and nips at me A LOT. Unusual behavior. Girl photos next post.

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Before posting the girls, let me post the photos of the other boys that haven't made the list, so you can see. Most of the non-nn ones are pretty little compared to the ones I've put on my "keep" list. (I was reading your post/blog about white in the babies...)





Not bad size on this one - 36.54oz. I was hoping he would be a girl...

This boy is nice looking but pretty tiny:






This fella is actually pretty big... 37.28oz



This guy bites - HARD. And he's little.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Here are the girls:











This is the one I might cull - not only does she have minimal spotting, but she also is CRAZY - jumps at my hand every time I change the water.


- Ant Farm

 

[draye]

Here are the girls: This is the one I might cull - not only does she have minimal spotting, but she also is CRAZY - jumps at my hand every time I change the water. [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR] - Ant Farm

Nice looking pullets there.

 

[draye]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...a-mottled-naked-neck-thread/390#post_18358519