The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

New chicks are hatching out right now! Looks like a BUNCH of them in there. Probably about a dozen? I have eight more eggs going into the hatcher on Friday. I'll get pix of the newborns soon.

These would be the first chicks of this season, EXCEPT one of my hens snuck off while I was out of town for a week, and started sitting on some eggs. The petsitter didn't collect eggs, and I didn't have the heart to destroy them, so I let her hatch them out. At the time, my giant roo, "Cheeto" should have been the only rooster old enough to breed. He was the only one I ever saw mounting any of the hens when the hen started sitting on these eggs - we're talking about two months ago at this point, since the chicks are a month old now. But, I can't gurantee these are his chicks, because technically there are other younger, smaller roos in the pen. Anyway, I couldn't wait to see if they got color, and so far, ALL of them have white flecks:

If these are actually Cheeto's babies, they will be HUGE! Check him out, I hope they're his. I wonder?? It should be really obvious if these are his babies when they get bigger, because of his body type and size. I'm guessing his kids will be a whole lot bigger than a regular Aloha!

Anyway, the newest baby chicks hatching now, some eggs were from another seperate breeding pen with a HUGE pure Speckled Sussex roo in there. Several chicks look very Sussex. Others are bright gold. That looks very promising, I mean, if I'm looking for signs that Cheeto is the father. I'm going to band the legs and see how they develop. Right now, these should be all (or mostly all) the babies from the Sussex roo pen and from Cheeto's pen. Cheeto is dominant in the main pen. He's in there with about a dozen hens and several other younger roos. Three of the other roos are still goofy teens and whenever they get near a hen, she pecks them and they run away in terror. LOL.

However, I did see this gorgeous boy, "Flame" sneak off and cover one hen. He's bigger and the next oldest, and "second in command" in Cheeto's breeder pen. I don't think I'll be too upset about those "contaminated" genes, because wow is he gorgeous. I saw him hop on one of my favorite hens, a really big half-Aloha so the chicks should turn out great. I really need more breeding pens! "Flame" is really cool! But I would like to have a way to gurantee that the chicks are only by one boy or another. Not enough pens, arrrgh.

Going to cross him with some pure Buff Orp hens, if an Aloha partner out here can get a breeding pen set up. He's working on it! I can't wait. He is going to try and set up several breeder pens we can use in the program. If he can set up the pens, I'll give him the chickens to fill them up with, and we'll share the chicks hatched out.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

I hear you about needing more breeding pens... I have 2 IF I sacrifice my grow-out pen... But I have 2 Aloha roos and one Sussex. I have 4 Sussex hens, 5 Buff Orp hens, and (unless my lost pullet returns) 4 Aloha hens. So if I had THREE breeeding pens, I would be able to set each boy up with 4-5 hens and grow out the offspring simultaneously, once I get bands to keep them sorted. My mixed flock can keep the big yard, but the issue is where to put chicks if I keep all the breeding pens set up all season. I will likely get KILLED if I keep hatching all season, but if we can recruit more interested parties in this region I will be set up to give out eggs.
And then the question is who to put with which hens?
Obviously the Sussex would bewith the Aloha hens, but I don't know between Nameless and Easter which would do better with the Sussex and which with the Orpington hens.
Any thoughts on this?

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

I have been following this project since you first posted about it and love it. I like the different variation/colors coming out and how they are getting more and more uniform. If I had more room I would love to work with these, maybe next year

 

[alohachickens]

Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex :

I hear you about needing more breeding pens... I have 2 IF I sacrifice my grow-out pen... But I have 2 Aloha roos and one Sussex. I have 4 Sussex hens, 5 Buff Orp hens, and (unless my lost pullet returns) 4 Aloha hens. So if I had THREE breeeding pens, I would be able to set each boy up with 4-5 hens and grow out the offspring simultaneously, once I get bands to keep them sorted. My mixed flock can keep the big yard, but the issue is where to put chicks if I keep all the breeding pens set up all season. I will likely get KILLED if I keep hatching all season, but if we can recruit more interested parties in this region I will be set up to give out eggs.
And then the question is who to put with which hens?
Obviously the Sussex would bewith the Aloha hens, but I don't know between Nameless and Easter which would do better with the Sussex and which with the Orpington hens.
Any thoughts on this?

Tam'ra - do you want to post better pics of both Easter and Nameless up here? Maybe that would help?

I'd say if all else fails, put BOTH "Easter" and "Nameless" together one pen, with ALL the big hens - Sussex and Orps alike. Then put the Sussex roo in the secondary pen with all the small Aloha girls. What should probably happen, is Easter and Nameless will figure out who's top dog in there, and that roo will be the father of most of the chicks. The second guy will sneak-attack a few hens, ha ha, but not many.

Then what I did, when I was ready to try a new rooster out in the same pen, was cage up the dominant roo for a month, and at that point Roo #2 would instantly take over. So that's one way to mix up genetics if like me, you're super limited on pens.

After that, if you're crunched for space like I am, you may have to shove everyone into one pen, and let nature take its course, ha ha, while you grow the next generation out in the second pen. But, hopefully at that point you've hatched out tons of chicks, if everything has gone well. Then you can rehome the pure Buff Orps, the pure Sussex, and just keep your half-breds to use next year in place of the purebreds. That would clear out a lot of room. The only scary part about that, is what happens if you move all this stock out to make room for chicks and something happens to the babies? So maybe keep at least a couple of the pure Sussex and Orps around until you have your first generation of halfbreeds near lay.

Because I'm so crunched for room, I'm slamming though each generation and then passing the excess stock onto as many "safe houses" as I can. I'm hoping I won't need to backtrack, ever! As soon as I hatch out I'm already looking for who I can cull ASAP to make room for the next generation. The flip side is this has made me a really scary-harsh breeder in a good way. Culls get culled RIGHT NOW and I have to be super picky. Probably why I've come this far so fast. I don't have room to be sentimental and keep mediocre stock becuase it has a few good points.​

 

[alohachickens]

Quote:
You aren't that far from Tam'ra and Matt . . . JOIN US. Bwahahaahaaaa .. . . . .

 

[bmiss]

wow...im impressed with ur birds so far....

im def. gonna keep an eye out on this project of yours....good luck.

 

[Half pintfarms~]

these a great looking!!!

 

[cmfarm]

So the end color will be a white chicken with flecks of color? Do you have a picture of one that is really close to what you want to end up with?

 

[alohachickens]

Goal: Create a large dual-pupose chicken (Sussex, Buff Orp, NHR, Plymouth Rock body type) that instead of coming in one color, each batch of chicks comes in a RAINBOW of colors and patterns. White with colored flecks or colored with white flecks. Different base colors, too - buff mottled, orange mottled, red mottled, brown mottled. Eventually, a darker brown and some kind of gray mottled (whether it's blue mottled or lavender mottled I don't know yet) will be added back in.

Right now, I'm trying to get the elusive Mille pattern - a true gold with black and white flecks! Super close on one hen, may get it next year. The closest I've gotten so far:

I'm also working on an entirely red/white checkered hen, and finally, I GOT IT! Yippeeeeee!!!! The only black is in her TAIL:

Need to cross her with a NHR to improve size and type and laying . . . but this is so close to one goal.

Another type that's actually been easy to reproduce is the "Confetti" color. Totally got that now, just have to get it on a bigger chicken body. It's a white with darker flecks color:

Mostly need to get the body type improved now . . . . while keeping and improving colors . . .

Single upright comb - to help with early sexing. (Don't mind pea combs but I have issues telling the boys from the girls early on.) Leg color: Not critical, but preferably yellow.

Must be PRACTICAL. Good egg layers, big enough to eat the extra roos. No feathery legs, no poofy crests, mostly because don't want people focusing on crests or legs and getting distracted. Work on getting them to be good layers first! The perfect Aloha flock would be strong, healthy, awesome layers, that would be welcome on any FARM. Just as practical as a flock of Plymouth Rocks or Rhode Island Reds. The only difference is Alohas would come in a rainbow of colors and patterns, all in the same flock.

I got tired of buying impractical poor layers that were "pretty" and then keeping a few "boring" hens to get eggs from. I was like, "hmm, wouldn't it be nice if my layer hens looked pretty, too?"

I loved my Speckled Sussex, but they only come in Mahogany. And, they are very sensitive in our environment? My friends and neighbors have noticed this, we get high death rates on Sussex. They are very "weak" birds compared to Easter Eggers, which thrive in Arizona for some reason. I used my best EE'er hen early in the Aloha program. That's why some of mine have poofy cheeks, ha ha. But breeding out the pea comb has been tough.

So they need to be strong, healthy, good egg layers, and gorgeous to boot. The exact same qualities Swedish people were looking for when they created Swedish Flower Hens. Same basic end goal, just an American version. I am leaning towards more vibrant, obnoxious colors in mine. BRIGHT red. YELLOW gold. ORANGE orange. Ah, typical American, right?? Make 'em big and flashy! Ha ha. Eventually, I might introduce some Swedish Flower into the flock. I haven't decided just yet. It's kind of fun seeing how close I can get to a Swedish Flower Hen without actually using any Swedish Flower Hen? LOL.

 

[cmfarm]

Okay, I think I understand now. I would love to help but don't have the pen space for a project like that. It sounds like fun though.