The Aloha Chicken Project

[tazcat70]

Thanks everyone for the well wishes.

Life is good! My cabinet incubator is going to arrive on 3/7!!!!

Perfect timing for the 3/10 egg delivery.

That is fantastic!!!! Did you get it yesterday?

Shoot - that's just in time for winter in the Midwest. (Grumble grumble.) We'd just have to hope Notinoz would be heading home for the holidays and would be able to pick a few up for us sunny AZ folks to test-hatch in the meantime! LOL. When do Midwesterners really start to raise chicks? When I lived back in KC area, we waited until May. But if you are back there and you want to "push" things, what is the earliest time to hatch? Late Feb? Or March?

Sorry to hear about the chicks.

Ok, this year my first chicks hatched on New Years Day. This is because my Blue Laced Silver Wyandottes started laying pretty good, and I have to hatch out 64 chicks to get 1 chick,

so I started early.

Usually I like to hatch my first back of chicks in late March early April, so there isn't as much brooder time. If they start laying good at 6 mos, we could get a batch or 2 set. And they would be old enough to handle the winter. (Here, our worst weather is the end of Jan, beginning of Feb.)

 

[notinoz2007]

are we ready BYCers? aloha eggs will be taking their first road trip tomorrow

sure, they've been mailed before, but this is extra special. i'll take them to all my favorite gas stations and mcdonalds along the way, and make sure they stay comfy and warm in the back of the van. i'll even turn them every few hours, and probably talk to them if you wanna know the truth!!

sommer, am i picking up eggs from laree or do you have them at your place too? i will call you tomorrow when i get home from work (around 3) and i'll also call you when we get on the road with an eta to your area. can we meet at that gas station you were talking about? i think i still have the address in my messages.
is it crazy i'm looking forward to this 24-ish hour drive???

and just an early fyi - there is another trip being planned for mid/late june. just sayin...

 

[alohachickens]

Oh my gosh, do we EVER have eggs for you Midwesterners!!!

I just got back from Laree's - she's contributed about three dozen!

I have about 12 dozen saved up here! I even asked for some eggs from my neighbor, Raymond! I gave him my "solid" (colored carrier) hens and a few Confetti roos and now they are laying. He gave me 8 eggs but I'll ask for more.

That means you'll get eggs from 5 different Aloha roos - whoo hooo!

And Notinoz - thanks for the heads up! Hmmm, mid/late June? HMMM. We should have some new blood laying by that time! I have several roos and hens that are due to mature right around then . . . .

OK, pictures! I can't stop taking pictures of Alohas! Here are photos from Laree's pens:





This pen has Pumpkin in with some pure Sussex hens and some small Aloha hens, and one half-Sussex half-Aloha that gave me some BEAUTIFUL chicks when I hatched out her babies last year! Front and center is "Sassafrass" one of the prettiest Aloha hens EVER. Period!

Oh, and Ray's yard has these boring looking hens with a wild Confetti rooster. Watch out for the one random Game hen though, this HEN is NOT an Aloha - he rescued her, she was walking around an apartment complex he was working at! Unfortunately her eggs might be mixed in the batch, but eh, hopefully we can tell and CULL anything that looks like this hen:



Now, these hens BELOW are the Aloha hens with the above Aloha rooster:





(that same Game hen is above to the left. All the larger, tan-ish or light brown solid hens with black tails are Alohas.)

 

[alohachickens]

Tazcat - Good to hear from you! Laree had a special present for you that she slipped in the carton along with the Aloha eggs.

Wow, you guys get going a lot earlier than what I thought! Hatching in the Midwest for New Years? Hmm, now that I think about it, a lot of people back there did the New Year's hatch. But it's strange I had these chicks die here when it is so mild right now. I think these hatchery chicks were just weak. They shouldn't have died at 55 degrees with one lamp and a whole brooder full of buddies to snuggle up with. Since then, another died and there is no excuse. So that's five out of ten of my new "outside" breed chicks that have passed.

Meanwhile, ALL the Aloha babies are doing great! Mine are thriving. Laree's little batch is adorable, too. One very big, very fat fuzzball of Laree's that looks suspiciously Cheeto-orangish already has a pair of teeny white wing feathers coming in. Her baby Aloha chicks are freaking CUTE!

Sommer

 

[alohachickens]

This is SO CUTE. I can't believe a mommy adopted them! They are going to be so happy now!

Too weird! Alohachickens, I love this breed... I don't know of any other breed that can do that!

Here is a picture from this am


as you can see it's a little difficult to see what the chicks look like as grandma chicken has adopted them. Trying to take them out to photograph them is a risky thing to do as she is fiercely protective of her babies! I let the chickens out to wander around, and she heard their little peeps and decided (after a few days) that they were her babies...

 

[alohachickens]

OK, I told you, I can't stop with the darn photos!

This hen is not in a breeder pen yet, she's over at Laree's, but now I'm pondering this hen plus Cheeto . . . . HMMM . . . .

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Welcome back, tazcat!! My incubator arrived on Tuesday!

Laree, Sommer, notinoz: My incubator is ready! I'm so ready!

Sommer: LOVE the pics! ALL the birds are just gorgeous and I can't wait to see what comes from my hatch!

 

[alohachickens]

karenS - probably almost 200 eggs will be headed your way, wow! This will be a true record Aloha "baby boom" of all time! Thank you SO much for helping, these beautiful birds are so rare and unique, and it's just a handful of these hanging on by a thread right now. I am super excited about this, especially considering you have the potential to stock a whole bunch of new breeders in the Midwest where folks have a lot more room to keep larger flocks.

Don't get me wrong, Phoenix is really chicken-friendly, but for these in-town properties, one acre is considered very large, and while hens are 100% OK in the city limits, most folks around here can't keep roosters. Go outside the city limits and predators (coyotes and hawks) become a huge issue because food is so scarce in the desert. Predators are forced to look to rural farmer's flocks to fill their bellies, so even if someone in the desert has 5 acres, they are still limited by the size of their coop, as free range is generally out of the question. When we lived in Missouri when I was a kid, a coyote sighting was RARE during the day and so were losses from hawks. Hawks found enough mice and bunnies in the field to eat, and didn't bother our chickens.

We only had one daytime predator attack on our chickens in 10 years on the farm in MO, and that could have been a dog. It happened when we ran to the store one afternoon, so we didn't witness it. We just had to lock the coop up at night and they could free range the farm during the day safely. Out here, the coyotes have no problems hunting during the day. A main part of their diet is people's cats and small dogs, too! Not just chickens . . . .

So it's been very hard to set up new Aloha breeders. Many folks here are willing to help, but their zoning laws or property size restrict them.

 

[draye]

Hey you aloha chicken peoples,

Go to this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/495213/large-fowl-only-crazy-egg-chain/580
and take an offer of someones eggs and offer up some of those beautiful Aloha eggs.
I myself would love to have some, but I could only mix them with my Easter Eggers or Naked Necks right now, because of no extra room for a pen of their own.

Who knows with all the wonderful colors of EE's they would probably come out looking great.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

karenS - probably almost 200 eggs will be headed your way, wow! This will be a true record Aloha "baby boom" of all time! Thank you SO much for helping, these beautiful birds are so rare and unique, and it's just a handful of these hanging on by a thread right now. I am super excited about this, especially considering you have the potential to stock a whole bunch of new breeders in the Midwest where folks have a lot more room to keep larger flocks.

Don't get me wrong, Phoenix is really chicken-friendly, but for these in-town properties, one acre is considered very large, and while hens are 100% OK in the city limits, most folks around here can't keep roosters. Go outside the city limits and predators (coyotes and hawks) become a huge issue because food is so scarce in the desert. Predators are forced to look to rural farmer's flocks to fill their bellies, so even if someone in the desert has 5 acres, they are still limited by the size of their coop, as free range is generally out of the question. When we lived in Missouri when I was a kid, a coyote sighting was RARE during the day and so were losses from hawks. Hawks found enough mice and bunnies in the field to eat, and didn't bother our chickens.

We only had one daytime predator attack on our chickens in 10 years on the farm in MO, and that could have been a dog. It happened when we ran to the store one afternoon, so we didn't witness it. We just had to lock the coop up at night and they could free range the farm during the day safely. Out here, the coyotes have no problems hunting during the day. A main part of their diet is people's cats and small dogs, too! Not just chickens . . . .

So it's been very hard to set up new Aloha breeders. Many folks here are willing to help, but their zoning laws or property size restrict them.

I so appreciate you trusting us with them! 200 eggs is wonderful!!!! Tazcat and I are going to split them and so I was hoping for around 50 each. 100 each is twice as good!!!!! Wow! I can't wait to get them in the bator! Do you think I should let them "rest" before putting them in? If so, how long?

My family is so excited about the Alohas. My husband didn't really get it at first but he's warming up to the whole chicken thing now. He's a great guy to have done all my projects. He's really into the Aloha eggs coming, so that's great! The guys he works with are asking when the hens will start laying, they're really interested in the fresh eggs. NOT my Aloha eggs though! Those are going in the bator!

Oddly enough, we had a really hot, dry year last year and we've seen and heard lots of coyotes and some foxes. We never see them in the daytime. At dusk they start prowling around and making a ridiculous racket, but our neighbor has chickens and as long as they are shut in for the night they're fine. Our closest neighbor has two Weimeraners who sometimes run loose so I'm thinking shutting them in at night, sure, but a bit of electric wire here, electric wire there and no problems at all!

Thanks so much!