The Aloha Chicken Project

[bmiss]

i agree...the culls are sweet looking birds too.

 

[alohachickens]

We were being crazy-picky, but Stephen is a very knowledgeable breeder in general and we decided to just "go for it" and not mess around. Here's a few nicer culls:

This one had nice color, yellow legs, single comb, but had a really "upright" and narrow body. We had two other hens similar to this, but they were deeper in girth:

So, we picked the two with the better body shape. Looking for more "standard chicken" bodies, deeper and more round, less gamey/banty/upright in form. Two hens really stood out as better than all the rest in body shape. (Size was the same on all - small. So that wasn't much of a factor on these. We'll get the size up this next generation with our outcrosses. Was a matter of picking best color, body shape, combs, and leg color.)

The only thing wrong with these three really colorful girls, is if you looked very closely, they had tiny DOUBLE combs. Stephen wants to get rid of the "funky combs" ASAP:

We had several others that were just like this, but had single combs, so decided to just work with the single comb hens. The roosters he picked all have single combs, so I think maybe this means all his chicks should have single combs in the next generation? Boy was it fun to have so many to choose from! It was hard work to raise up about 80 chicks between us this summer, which we have now culled down to about 20 chickens total. Wow! But I know that's how we are going to make faster progress.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Very interesting! I have never seen or heard of this project before. Why are they called aloha?

 

[alohachickens]

Quote:
Hey! You live on the Big Island? Got an incubator? I've got eggs, LOL.

I'll be over there next month, staying in Hilo. Would be awesome to have Alohas actually in Hawaii, ha ha!

The name is because I was trying to recreate "Blommehons" or Swedish Flower Chickens. At the time, they weren't found in the U.S. and I couldn't afford to import them. Now Greenfire has imported them, but only recently! Anyway, I couldn't call them "Swedish" anything if they were an American breed, and "American Flower Hens" wasn't very charming. I thought of all the colorful flowery prints on Aloha shirts, and how there are so many color possibilities and patterns:

But actually, right now they're being bred in the desert. A friend suggested "Desert Flower Chickens" and that was a close second, but the idea of little chickens wearing Aloha shirts and flower leis is just too funny!

 

[MaBo]

That does makes sense. Thanks for explaining your selection process. It's great to have yet another person with breeding experience to bring their knowledge to the project. I bet this will be a great learning experience for a lot of us.

BTW, where is the best place to find your current phenotype goals for the Alohas? (notice I am using my recently-learned fancy genetics lingo there... but it just means the observable genetic traits and characteristics)

Quote:

 

[alohachickens]

Quote:
What I desperately need to do is paint a "breed standard" picture. This won't be terribly hard, I am a commercial artist and all, but I'm always so busy with work! It would probably be a ten hour project and I've just been lazy, LOL.

The chickens would probably look closest to a Sussex in form, but with yellow legs. New Hampshire Reds are also a great example of body type, but I would like the longer tail on the rooster, and Sussex do have the longer rooster tails than say, Orpingtons or New Hampshire or Buff Rocks.

Ideally, body should be deep and round in form. They should look plump and be big in size. Nice bright red comb. Robust "farm" chickens, but in a rainbow of mottled colors, including buff mottled, orange mottled, "millie" mottled tri-color, red/white mottled, brown mottled.

And eventually, I'll bring a dilute to black back in - something that fades the black to either gray or chocolate brown. Not sure if I'd want to go with blue mottled, because that would create Splash chicks, or if I'd pick Lavender instead from Lavender Orps, which is a color that breeds more "true" but also creates grayish plumage in place of black. (But you don't get splash chicks like when you work with Blue.) Another fun option would be to bring in the Dun gene from somewhere, which turns black color to chocolate in one form, or with two sets of genes, turns black to a khaki tan color! The "chocolate" color would be another option. That stuff is all for later, though, LOL.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
What I desperately need to do is paint a "breed standard" picture. This won't be terribly hard, I am a commercial artist and all, but I'm always so busy with work! It would probably be a ten hour project and I've just been lazy, LOL.

The chickens would probably look closest to a Sussex in form, but with yellow legs. New Hampshire Reds are also a great example of body type, but I would like the longer tail on the rooster, and Sussex do have the longer rooster tails than say, Orpingtons or New Hampshire or Buff Rocks.

Ideally, body should be deep and round in form. They should look plump and be big in size. Nice bright red comb. Robust "farm" chickens, but in a rainbow of mottled colors, including buff mottled, orange mottled, "millie" mottled tri-color, red/white mottled, brown mottled.

And eventually, I'll bring a dilute to black back in - something that fades the black to either gray or chocolate brown. Not sure if I'd want to go with blue mottled, because that would create Splash chicks, or if I'd pick Lavender instead from Lavender Orps, which is a color that breeds more "true" but also creates grayish plumage in place of black. (But you don't get splash chicks like when you work with Blue.) Another fun option would be to bring in the Dun gene from somewhere, which turns black color to chocolate in one form, or with two sets of genes, turns black to a khaki tan color! The "chocolate" color would be another option. That stuff is all for later, though, LOL.

Do you have a copy of the APA or ABA standard? I would suggest that you use that format in describing your working standard for the alohas. Pretty birds

 

[alohachickens]

Or for final body type, put this kind of color, comb and tail:

On an even bigger, plumper body like Cheeto's, who is half Buff Rock:

And get those legs nice and yellow, too.

Considering I'm hatching out Cheeto's babies now, and will be crossing those with Flame or his chicks, I'm hoping to have my first "real" Aloha this coming year! Can't wait!

 

[Christie Rhae]

Quote:
Hey! You live on the Big Island? Got an incubator? I've got eggs, LOL.

I'll be over there next month, staying in Hilo. Would be awesome to have Alohas actually in Hawaii, ha ha!

The name is because I was trying to recreate "Blommehons" or Swedish Flower Chickens. At the time, they weren't found in the U.S. and I couldn't afford to import them. Now Greenfire has imported them, but only recently! Anyway, I couldn't call them "Swedish" anything if they were an American breed, and "American Flower Hens" wasn't very charming. I thought of all the colorful flowery prints on Aloha shirts, and how there are so many color possibilities and patterns:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c181/sommerp/hawaiianshirtsA.jpg

But actually, right now they're being bred in the desert. A friend suggested "Desert Flower Chickens" and that was a close second, but the idea of little chickens wearing Aloha shirts and flower leis is just too funny!

Yes I am on the Big Island and I got lots of incubators! lol
I would love to hatch some Alohas if you want to bring eggs! That would be a really cool project. My poor husband cannot build coops fast enough for me. lol! I actually live about 1 1/2 hours from Hilo but would be happy to drive to Hilo for eggs... and a little shopping at our islands only mall.

 

[Christie Rhae]

I was making my way through this thread late last night then jumped to the last page. Now I see the "aloha chicken" explanation on page 3. Sorry for being impatient.

They do look like they are wearing Aloha print!
What size would you compare them to? Like as big as Plymouth rocks? Or smaller? And the eggs are brown? There I go again... all this is probably in the thread. Ok I will go back and read more. lol