The Aloha Chicken Project

[tazcat70]

If you are wanting yellow shanks and feet, try and choose breeds that have those qualities as well. Orps have white skin, shanks, and feet. But they will pack on the weight, but the feathers are looser too.

 

[tazcat70]

71 of yours . . . . plus 82 with Taz . . . that's 153 chicks in development!

Even if a third of those don't actually make it out of the shells, you guys are going to have LOTS of Alohas to pick from! Ha!

You are telling me!!! I started to freak out a little bit, but I am all better now.

 

[runsw/scissors]

Thank you Taz Cat! As you can infer I am a little new to this...

 

[alohachickens]

EVENTUALLY, the goal is spotted to spotted, ha ha! But unfortunately, first we have to improve size . . . .

So, the goal then is spotted to spotted? Or light coloured chickens to the occasional dark coloured one? Lose the barred roos and keep the barred hen. Correct? I'm not real sure I understand how to make the decisions in my breeding pens, that's the advise I'm looking for. Should I upload the pictures or??? You do realize that I have over 20 chicks to work with, right? Then there is the buff orpingtons as well.

I just don't want to set back this whole breeding project with my inexperience.

Also, these chicks are just sprouting spots!!

Literally overnight they are ALL sporting all kinds of white. The ones that I thought would not spot are just amazing! One little guy has a big white flashy bib; I am just amazed at their colouring!

So aside from the Speckled Sussex, other large breeds don't have spots. That means you are stuck crossing spotted to solid for a bit.

And if you just use ONLY Speckled Sussex . . . . everything looks like Speckled Sussex!!! Ha ha ha.

You'll have to pick some "other stuff" to add yellow legs, red colors, light colors, big bodies, and so on. I am a big fan of NHR. The influence can be seen in "Flame" really well:



The Sussex influence is seen in the arrangement of his spots, and in his pink legs. But the New Hampshire Red shows in his newly improved brighter red color. His body shape and comb reflects a bit of Leghorn look thanks to early Exchequer Leghorn blood. (He's about 1/4 New Hampshire Red.)

I chose Buff Rock over Buff Orp, because Buff Rocks are more "meat" and less "fluff". And of course we now have actual Swedish Flowers to mix in, which I haven't tried yet. But I do have a quartet of Swedish Flowers here to experiment with! If all goes well, this fall we will see the first Aloha x Swedish Flower crosses. Boy won't that be interesting?

 

[alohachickens]

Oh, and of course post photos of your chicks! We can all help you pick out which are the best chicks to keep!

You'll want a colorful rooster (or few) to grow out.

And lots of hens, bigger the better! If they don't show spots, they should still carry genes for spots. (Don't toss out a nice, solid colored hen that shows good size, she could be useful.)

However, you can cull small hens that don't show spots, and you can cull any roosters that don't show spots, if you need to get numbers down. Those should be the first to go.

Then you can take your small colorful hens and try to find a suitable larger rooster. One of the crosses by MaBo and Tamra would be terrific!

Put your most colorful rooster with BIG hens. Put your itty bitty colorful hens with a big rooster, and if you have to pick a big "plain" rooster, so be it. Gotta improve size from somewhere.

Mix genes and bake in incubator for three weeks at 99 degrees. LOL!

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

Wow . . . um, if these are the "half breeds" this seriously is a lot of white!

And, you know, they do kind of look like half-breeds? I am seeing a lot of yellow legs and I don't think any of the small "base stock" that I sent you guys had yellow legs??? Check your Aloha hens. If NONE of the hens have yellow legs, but these spotted chicks do have yellow legs, well, that gene has to come from somewhere. (Like a Buff Rock or NHR rooster!) So that could help verify if these ones showing white are actually half breeds or if a sneaky escaping hen was covered by an Aloha rooster outside the pen.

A lot of my Cheeto babies are showing these little flecks of white. There ARE four *wildly* spotted kids in there; but also several of the ones I've been referencing as "solid" actually have these little flecks of white on the feather tips. I don't know if that white will fade out or not. I am assuming at this point it will fade, and is merely a sign that the gene is there.

But this one chick above, ummm, that is a LOT of white! I wonder if it's an accidental pure Aloha or a mix? Nice!!!

About....half?...the original Alohas had yellow legs. A few had grey and pink, but I think most of those were roos I culled. Only one of my 6 (The escapist hen who won't stay out of my garden) has legs that aren't yellow. Both the roos from my end have pale yellow legs. I think Matt's hen who contributed to that batch had dark legs though.

 

[tazcat70]

Thank you Taz Cat! As you can infer I am a little new to this...

Me too! Well to Alohas. I have been dabbling in chicken genetics for about a year or so. When things slow down some, I am going to try and do a little bit of research into the genetics part.

 

[alohachickens]

About....half?...the original Alohas had yellow legs. A few had grey and pink, but I think most of those were roos I culled. Only one of my 6 (The escapist hen who won't stay out of my garden) has legs that aren't yellow. Both the roos from my end have pale yellow legs. I think Matt's hen who contributed to that batch had dark legs though.

Oh, that's good! I couldn't remember. Should go back to your original photos a ways back . . . . we need more pics! Pics! Pics!

Ha ha ha!!

 

[alohachickens]

Went up to Stephen's yesterday. Remember the Craigslist Sussex that he bought? They were from Meyer Hatchery, it turns out. They really are more colorful than the Privett stock.

My Buff Barred Mottled rooster suddenly matured overnight, and started jumping on hens everywhere. NOT GOOD because he is really small, and barred, and we don't want to cross Barred x Barred or Small x Small. Yikes! Time to get him out of there!

This rooster is just a "temp". He's too small. And he has Barring, which I like to only keep in the hens. However, he does have this incredibly light buff mottled color. So far, EVERYTHING crossed with Sussex just makes more Sussex clones. I've never had a Buff Mottled rooster to work with before! I'm wondering, what happens if I cross a rooster this LIGHT in color with those Sussex? So we are doing a fun little "test project" before I cull him!

Here is the pen:





Look how LIGHT that rooster is compared to the pure Sussex hens!

Here is the hypothesis:

1. All chicks should be Mottled, because both parents show Mottling.

2. Half the chicks should be Barred, because Dad has Barring.

3. The "unknown" factor is: Will this Buff color be light enough to give us chicks that look "Not Sussex" in one generation?

This could be valuable info for us to use down the road!

All roosters from this group will probably be culled - this guy really is too small. All barred hens will (probably) be culled. Hens with no barring will be grown out to see how they differ from the 1/2 Sussex crosses that we've previously hatched out. So far, all other 1/2 Sussex have visually looked almost identical to 100% Sussex. In a nutshell, we're trying to see if we can break that trend using a rooster like this.

If it works, we'll know that any future Buff Mottled roosters would be extremely helpful to cross with pure Sussex. If it doesn't work, we can ignore Buff Mottled roosters, and realize that dangit, everything out of a Sussex is going to look like a Sussex on generation one, and then go pick roosters based on other factors besides Buff color. Like body size, shape, comb, and percentage of mottling.

Can't wait to see! We will set eggs from this group on April 13th. That's almost three weeks, hopefully enough time to have this guy's DNA only in the hens. (Previously the hens were with Butterscotch, so they will all be Aloha x Sussex crosses, regardless.)

 

[alohachickens]

Chicks from Stephen's pen have hatched, about 32 so far! Here they are:



I also have about 10 hatched from my own flock. I'd like to keep them in two groups if possible, but that all depends on if I can get a broody hen to adopt the second group. (Because I only have one stock tank to raise chicks in!)