The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

The moment I decided to save eggs, however, everyone in the 'project' pen stopped laying but the buffs, whose eggs are easy to tell apart from the others because they are larger, rounder, and darker than the others' eggs. So I know who laid them, but the SS rooster and one of the Aloha roosters are vying for top of the pecking order and I just can't tell who's in charge. They seem to have reached an understanding and they coexist eerily well, considering how much terror they rain down on the other roosters. They seem to have no problem with each other mingling with the same hens.

My plan is to put my SS roo with the Aloha hens, and pair each Aloha roo with either the buffs or the SS so I know for sure who is what. (Should I put one Aloha roo with only buff hens and the other with only SS hens or give each a few of both breeds? What is better?) Building the 3rd breeding pen is a spring project. It's too cold and dark still to be building.

I will post pics when I can. My internet has been super slow at home and I have no time to post pics at work, but I have some good ones of all my project chickens.

Isn't it weird how the roosters interact with one another? Yet mine have never injured another. No one has issues with little Butterscotch, he mates with hens right in front of Flame and Cheeto and they totally ignore him. But Cheeto HATES Flame! I just put them together again yesterday because I need my (one) small breeder pen for Butterscotch, and Cheeto chased Flame all over the yard. Then Butterscotch jumped right in front of Cheeto, fluffed up his pumpkin-colored neck feathers, and tried to pick a fight with him! And Cheeto just zipped around Butter and kept chasing Flame. It was so funny! Butterscotch actually seemed offended that no one considers him a threat.

OK, so it's buff hens with either a Sussex rooster or an Aloha rooster? HMMM. That's going to be tough! Either way, none should show any spots. Probably the half Sussex will be larger, but aside from that they will likely all turn out light brown in color. If Hastur has gray legs, that would be a clue if the chicks inherit those, as that gene won't come from Sussex or Buffs. Most likely the size will give away who is the daddy. The Sussex/Buffs will be totally full size, the half Alohas will be a bit more narrow in front and a touch smaller in height. (Mostly, the half Alohas will lose their "bulk". Some of my half-Alohas are almost as tall as a full-size chicken now, but the half's are much lighter and less "meaty".)

Anyway - as for the Aloha/Buff or Aloha/Sussex hens and their future breeder pens - to mix or not? Honestly, I don't know! Part of me says if you keep only Sussex hens with one Aloha roo and only Buff hens with the other, it will be a million times easier for you to tell "who is who" when you cross them all back and forth as adults. So for example, Pen A has one Aloha roo with your Buff hens, and you keep only the yellow-legged hens. Then you know (for sure) that if it's a hen with yellow legs, it was from Pen A and the dad was (fill in the blank.) Meanwhile you keep all your spotted hens from Pen B, which was Sussex hens with an Aloha roo. Then you know if it's a spotted hen, the dad was Aloha rooster (fill in blank.) Keep a couple roosters from the third pen, (Sussex rooster over Aloha hens) and then you'd know "for sure" that when you set up next year's breeding pens, you would be crossing everyone perfectly together on that next generation - which would be pretty awesome!

The other part of me wonders if maybe one rooster might end up working better with either the buffs or the Sussex? The only way to find that out for sure is to mix everyone up. Not to mention keeping track of pen x,y, and z is a LOT of work! Ha ha. Mixing everything up is less scientific but a whole lot easier. I can't wait to see how things turn out up there!

 

[alohachickens]

they sure are gray, every time i go to play with the chicks i wonder where these two came from, good to know. my daughter has named them little mr man and the little mrs, lol. we're not sure if they're male or female, but she likes to name them all anyway. the aggressive one that i mentioned before is definitely mellowing out. and i think that one might be a pullet, but only time will tell. i would take some pictures but my camera battery is dead

I think the parents then are Butterscotch and one of the "Ginger Girls". The Ginger's are my only hens with gray legs. (Their color was too fabulous to cull based on leg color.) Should be a super pretty cross. If I'm right, here's the mom and dad of Mr. Man and Little Mrs:



Above: Butterscotch
Below: Ginger Girls

 

[RareBreedFancier]

Pretty! Pretty!

I come to this thread to drool you know and I'm never disappointed.

 

[MaBo]

(For some reason I've not been getting any updated notifications for any BYC threads, even though it shows I am subscribed? Anybody else having this problem? <scratches head> )

Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say how excited I am with our little hatch happening here this weekend! We've got mostly Aloha eggs - Tam'ra has 9 (of 12 set), and I've got 15 (of 21 set). Not quite the quantities some others are hatching lately (80... wow!), but this is the maiden voyage for my home-brew 40-egg 'bator, so I guess it's not too bad. I only had 2 hens laying, so I set some fairly old eggs just out of curiosity to see how they would do. And actually, it was kind of surprising, some made it that were over 3 weeks old!

My 21 eggs are mostly from the same Aloha hen, crossed with "Red", my large RIR/NHR roo. It's possible my Buff Rock roo is to blame for a few, but probably not as likely, as he is way dominated by "Red". I'm in the same boat as Tam'ra right now... desperate to build some more breeding pens. My rooster/hen pairing situation right now is totally unmanaged.

This has been my first incubation/hatch ever, and I found it SUPER fascinating to candle and watch the chicks grow from small wiggling dot to ominously-dark egg that I can't see through. Candling is really fun, and useful too, as I don't have to worry about unknown eggs exploding and making messes. I removed all the failed eggs, so I'm expecting most/all the remaining to hatch. We'll see!

I setup a live webcam in the 'bator, so I could monitor things from work. Just for fun, you can check it out here if you want.... http://batorcam.bossardsr.us/

 

[MaBo]

I hear peeping!

 

[hipeatall]

How cool! Hope they start pipping soon

I hear peeping!

 

[alohachickens]

I hear peeping!

Yay!

Hey, is anyone else here sensing that MaBo has the potential to be a "hatchaholic"? And it will only get worse, MaBo.

See, right now you're doing those "boring" Aloha x Big Chicken crosses, to improve type. They will be cute. They will be fluffy. But they won't be spotted.

But just wait until NEXT season, when the colors start coming back. Then you have to hatch out the fuzzballs and wait and wait and wait to see how they color up . . . that gets addictive.

Speaking of "coloring up", my newest babies hatched from a special breeder pen with JUST my roo, Cheeto, and ONLY a few select very colorful hens are starting to get their feathers in! Well, two of the chicks have WHITE FEATHERS on their shoulders! Eeeeep! I'm trying not to get too excited - but if this means that Cheeto carries the gene for Mottling, we could get our first "true" Aloha chicken this spring - big, yellow legged, single combed and spotted, too!

Picture this with spots and you'll know why I'm totally psyched:




Okay . . . must be patient . . . too early to tell for sure . . .

 

[notinoz2007]

emergency post:
k i told you about the 2 little banty chicks, the ones you have determined parentage of. well i went out today and gave them some treats and i notice one of them is acting strange. she is wobbly, takes a few steps and rests. lays down to eat her treats. hobbles a bit, rests, snacks. hobble, rest, snack. repeat. another chick stepped on her, making her squawk in pain of course. she doesnt want me to touch her and wobbled away, falling sideways once. its seems like her left foot just gives out and the other isnt much better with keeping her balanced. she's resting under the roost right now.
what could this be? she is the smallest chick in the coop so is it something i gave them or maybe genetic? what does this sound like? i've never seen a chicken do this before.
oh, posted this here because she's an aloha, but i'm going to search her symptoms through byc.
thanks for any help and ideas.

 

[hallerlake]

Quote:
I would love to get some chickens with coloring like the Ginger girls. Are there any in the Seattle/Portland area? Pretty please!

 

[alohachickens]

Notinoz - I have absolutely no idea what that could be! OMG, I'm so sorry. I haven't had any experience those particular symptoms. I did have one that kind of "knuckled over" at the toes at about three months old, recently. She showed no discomfort or pain and was otherwise "normal". I did cull her, I have no idea what that was about, but she could have happily lived in a cage. So there is that one chick, but that's it out of about 100 or so that have hatched and been raised up at my place and Stephen's and the neighbor's. Everyone else here has been developing normally.