The Aloha Chicken Project

[Deerfield Acres]

I've had a terrible time getting these pics uploaded. Hopefully, I've got the problem solved this time. This guy is the current flock leader and my favorite roo for body type.



Check out that stance. Is it just me or is this a really handsome rooster? Look at that tail. This guy is all about the girls. He looks after them, scolds them if they bicker, calls them to the coop if he thinks something's not right and roosts on the very top roost, watching out the window for any trouble. He's friendly enough but on a mission!





This is my favorite roo for color. He's #2 roo in the flock. He looks like someone dripped white paint on his back. He's a really friendly roo also.



I did a poor job of taking pictures but you can see his back a little better here.





Here's one of my pretty girls. See how the spots are just now showing up on her back.




This is a general population shot. More white paint splashed around. Since this has just started showing up I hope it keeps coming!




Overall, Roo #2 has the most white and there is one other roo that could be his twin. The girls are more spotty than shows up in the pic with only the larger spots showing but they are coming along. The pullet in the lower center has tons of white coming in from her head to shoulders but it's really small and doesn't show up in the photo. I need a better camera! Or a better operator, not sure which but have some idea.

Ignore the Red Stars, they will be separated from the breeders. Same thing with the EE's. I'm still waiting to see who comes up with the best white before culling any more of the SSX. I only culled the smallest, drabbest birds but they didn't live through the transition to their new place.

Touchy, touchy, touchy.

 

[2seth2]

Ok i need a pic of cheeto cuase i am sooooooo lost

 

[alohachickens]

Ok i need a pic of cheeto cuase i am sooooooo lost

This is Cheeto!

Cheeto is a ridiculously large rooster. His parents BOTH LOOKED SOLID. Yep! There were no spots on either of his parents. But he is 1/4 Aloha.

His mom, a purebred Buff Rock from hatchery stock. Just a big old yellow hen.

His dad was this rooster:



Dad looks like a plain red rooster, but actually, his mom was a brightly colored Aloha hen with tons of white, and this rooster's dad was a pure NHR. So Dad carries a (hidden) gene for spots.

When this red rooster (Cheeto's Dad) was crossed with a pure, solid yellow Buff Rock, it meant the chicks would only have a 25% (one in four) chance of carrying the gene for spots.

I saw one tiny white feather under Cheeto's wing when he was four months old . . . a sign that Cheeto may be the "one in four" carrier of spots. Sure enough, some of Cheeto's chicks (when bred to colorful moms) have shown white spots! Now the color seems to be "fading out" but still, it is pretty cool to be getting ANY spots at all out of a rooster who looks solid, and had two solid, not-spotted parents! That's how crazy recessive genes can be!

Hopefully we can get the spots to stick around on the next generation, and be brighter and bolder. But Cheeto and his offspring will hopefully be a big help for improving size on some of these Aloha chicks.

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

Are you still planning on hatching out more Aloha crosses this summer?  How did the other chicks hatch out - MaBo's chickies?  Does he have an incubator to use?  Has he done any more hatching since then?  I know you guys were kind of waiting for the weather to perk up some . . . has it?

I'm afraid we've been slacking a bit over here. MaBo just started a new job and has been super busy, while I just lost mine and have been super distracted trying to start my own business. As far as the weather goes I think we are right in hatching season now! The next two months will be the perfect time to hatch here, though we could keep hatching through October before egg production drops off, as long as we had a decent brooder setup.
I haven't been able to connect with MaBo in a few weeks to see how the chicks are doing, but I'll email him to see how he's doing. Sorry we've been so unstable over here. I am sure things will improve soon!

 

[Deerfield Acres]

I love the color on Cheeto and his dad! That's a beautiful bird. I sure hope I can get something like them from my New Hamp hens/Aloha roo! Gorgeous!

 

[runsw/scissors]

If you guys want to check out my photo album you can see my new photos... I've been busy helping to build their new pen and haven't really been around.

The chicks (well young adults anyway..) look alot like what you see in Aloha's pictures. No surprise that!

Anyway some very nice roos in the bunch.

The temperaments are AMAZING!! They are very friendly and curious. These guy is barred and probably won't make it to the breeding pen. What do you guys think?




I really like this guy ^^^^ Very colourful!



She is definitely a keeper!! Love this girl! We carry her around like a parrot.

^^^ A random group shot of some of them. As you can see some have spotted really well.

 

[alohachickens]

The temperaments are AMAZING!! They are very friendly and curious. These guy is barred and probably won't make it to the breeding pen. What do you guys think?

I don't think that is actually barring! I think that's just kind of a "wild type" Partridge brown feathering. I have seen something like that on PURE Speckled Sussex chicks, sometimes, at a certain stage while they are growing - and it has later gone away. Look at all the white on the chest! Judging from size, type, etc, this looks like a Sussex cross to me. I think it should turn out just fine!

 

[alohachickens]

She is definitely a keeper!! Love this girl! We carry her around like a parrot.

WOW! Stunning! Look at those YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW legs! That has to be one of Cheeto's babies. Well, if her spots fade (and we don't know that yet, they've been fading on the roosters but that's a hen) try crossing her with one of the bigger half-Sussex . . . her orangey tones should help pull lighter color out of a Sussex-bred rooster, and many of the chicks should have yellow legs when you cross her with a pink-legged Sussex bloodline rooster. Right there is what looks like a terrific "foundation" hen for your program!

 

[alohachickens]

If you guys want to check out my photo album you can see my new photos... I've been busy helping to build their new pen and haven't really been around.

The chicks (well young adults anyway..) look alot like what you see in Aloha's pictures. No surprise that!




I really like this guy ^^^^ Very colourful!


^^^ A random group shot of some of them. As you can see some have spotted really well.

What an excellent group! I see yellow legs on that rooster up top, too! Could be a great one to cross with pure Sussex hens. The babies would all look like pure Sussex (because that dark brown color is so dominant) but you'd probably get quite a few chicks with yellow legs. The offspring that were both spotted and yellow-legged would be the ones to keep for breeding.

I see some super-white chicks in the foreground. I'm kind of pondering keeping one of the super-white roosters, myself? Not really sure yet. The last couple of generations, I've been trying to breed Alohas with less white since it's so easy to get those "super white" ones. I do want to see SOME color in there. Ha ha! As you can see, they pop out of nowhere!

But, with the Cheeto kids recently losing some of their spots, I kind of wonder if putting one of these really WHITE roosters in with some "solid" looking daughters of his, might get me some at least middle-sized chicks that carry stronger doses of color genes? (The white ones are all so itty-bitty though!)

I actually prefer more of a 50/50 colored-to-white ratio on Alohas - more white than a "normal" Sussex, less white than the really white ones that pop up. This is a photo (taken from Feathersite) of some PURE SWEDISH FLOWERS - and the funny thing is, none of the recent Greenfire imports really look like this????



And look at how plump and round they look! Squeeee!!!

That's pretty much what I'd love many of our Alohas to look like, eventually. The ones above, that is a far cry from my Greenfire Swedish Flower Hen:



Don't get me wrong! This pure Swedish hen is GORGEOUS. But, she doesn't look at all like the Feathersite.com photo, does she?

Oh, I just found another good photo! Check this out. I've translated the page, but it's still hard to understand. I guess these are Swedish Flower (Blommehons) mixes. Look at the ones to the right, the hens with more red tones and lots of white. That, in a nutshell, is an Aloha chicken! Ha ha ha! How funny that these are in a "mixed flock" over there. Ah . . . to get those two hens over here . . . sigh!!! Similar to what we see here in the Greenfire birds; but pushing the red/gold colors more on some of the chickens. And more white spotting, pretty please. LOL.

http://www.alternativ.nu/index.php?topic=9733.0

It's funny to me how we don't have a true GOLD and white or RED and white color on a mottled large bird. Even the Swedish have more gold/black/white (but not just "gold and white" with zero black) and there is no real "red and white" color I've seen in the Swedish hens? I see red and white on roosters - but not on the girls.

Good goals to keep in mind when breeding Alohas . . . try to bring in something brand new!

 

[alohachickens]

Another bad note for Derek but another promising note on Aloha strength and vigor . . . . which is extremely important to me with our fledgling breed . . .

Right before I left, I sent the four pure Sussex hens with Derek - because my half-Sussex, half Alohas are finally of breeding age, and I won't be hatching anything else for the summer. (I can always order some more pure Sussex next fall, if we need more Sussex influence.)

That round of "sniffles" that was going around here had pretty much passed - EXCEPT for the four Sussex hens, who were still sneezing every now and then. Strangely, Derek reports two of the Sussex hens died a couple of days after they went over there. He believes one was the McMurray hen, and another was one of the Privett hatchery hens. (I had two from each hatchery.)

I did have to cull one hen-chick here, and I did medicate the rest of Cheeto's peeps after that. I have too much invested in the Cheeto babies to lose them now, so with reluctance I decided to go ahead and use meds on them. Within three days of the administration of antibiotics, all symptoms in the Cheeto chicks were gone.

The large chickens had made contact with the Cheeto chicks. I heard a few sneezes in the "big" pen but the pure Alohas showed no symptoms at all. No other deaths (to adults or chicks) were reported here - and honestly, I probably could have tried to nurse the one sick Cheeto chick back, but I thought it was better to just cull her since she appeared to have some other issue going on (bad vision?) and was underweight, which could be why she was hit so hard by the illness in the first place.

Once again, the pure Sussex prove to be very fragile, and the Alohas either shrugged it off or showed zero symptoms at all. The Swedish Flowers did get a few sniffles, but they were alert and very active the entire time and showed no signs of distress. Because of that, rather than medicate with antibiotics, I let the main coop recover naturally. Unfortunately, it seems the pure Sussex could have used some assistance.