The Aloha Chicken Project

[alohachickens]

I believe, if I calculated correctly, that my Alohas are 10.5 weeks old today. I took pics of the hens in the white and yellow leg pen with one tiny cockerel who was severely picked on in the big and small cockerel pens so relocated with this group of hens. I also took a pic of my lanky spotty SX roo who ambled in front of the camera.

He's taller than my Big Red SX but isn't as thick. I think he's going to be a pretty boy once he's bulked up a bit.

#3 This is a good sized Ginger girl with black spots on neck and tail with a couple black tail feathers. White underfeathers on neck and grey underfeathers on body. This funny girl has pale, pale grey legs that almost look white.




#5 Nice sized bird with some nice white lacing and black flecks on neck. Some black on wings and tail, dark grey underfeathers.






#6 Small version of #2 hen.




Those are all of the white legged hens. I'm going to take a little break and then I'll post all the yellow legged hens.

The top two hens have fabulous coloring! But keep an eye on the bottom one, I had a hen like that who ended up covered in tiny white spots as she aged! She had started out very plain, but her spots increased in number starting at four months, and by six months she had tiny spots all over. Pretty much the opposite of the "fading spots" on the Cheeto babies . . . . a few of these may surprise you as they mature.

By four months, however, which direction they are going in should start to show . . . either they will be getting more white, or if they are Cheeto's babies, the white will start fading away at that point. Ha ha!

 

[alohachickens]

Are you using the ones (Swedish Flower) that have crests also?

No. Going for "no crests" on Alohas! However, the crest is a simple dominant gene that would be easy to breed out. A crested Swedish rooster could be used to create Alohas. Just keep the babies with no crests and all future generations will not have crests, either. The gene for crests does not "hide" and pop out suddenly in future generations, in other words. The only downside is that first generation you'd have to remove all chicks that showed the crest.

The reason for no crests is because it doesn't really have a function (Alohas are supposed to be practical, aside from their bright colors) and can actually cause problems if it gets too big. A big crest obscures vision which means those chickens can be more prone to attack by predators. You have to be careful not to breed too many crested x crested birds together or the crest will get bigger.

With all the "other stuff" that we have to worry about - leg color, plumage color, improving size, etc, we really don't need to get distracted with crests, or fluffy legs, or puffy cheeks, or other stuff like that. If somebody likes mottled birds with crests, there is the Tolbunt and the crested Swedish. In the long run, once we get size/type/color down, I'd rather folks focus on breeding Alohas to be big and healthy and strong, or outcross with something that is an amazing egg layer to improve productivity, rather than mess around with crests.

 

[alohachickens]

What did you cross in order to get #3 and #5?

It's tough to say, because we had a mishmash of all the chickens together at that point! Some eggs came from my pens, some came from Laree's pens. Since they all hatched out at the same time, it's hard to say where anyone came from. I'd guess that those hens are daughters of my "Ginger Girls" because they look so much like them as babies! Those are just the older bloodline Alohas from the looks of it.

Flashy color, but they will probably be smaller and kind of "gamey" looking. The "Ginger" color and the "Confetti" color (seen on that small mostly white rooster) are two chicken colors that seem to be totally unique to the Aloha bloodline. (As in, I haven't had any luck getting that color by crossing other "existing" breeds? Like Sussex to New Hampshire Red, as an example.)

15littlem, our goal now is to try and get those colors onto a BIG chicken body . . . hoping you can help us in the future when we can ship chicks from here again! It's going to be tough. It seems the flashiest, prettiest ones also tend to be the smallest. So frustrating!

KarenS is closer to you so she may be able to try and ship you some hatching eggs this fall from those hens, later this fall. It's certainly worth a shot! Or have me send you some live chicks to work with. I love the colors on #3 and #5, too.

 

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All righty! Here are some photos of my roosters. There will be several posts to keeps things more manageable for dial up folks...

Here is one guy, that I plan to keep:
His white spots are staying if look at his neck you can see his spots are increasing!

Here is another of the same boy:
I love his bold colouring, as well as his deep rich background colour!

 

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And, here is another that I definitely plan to keep!

 

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double post

 

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no, triple post!

 

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here is another

Not too sure whether to keep him.

 

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Here is #4

 

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And the last

Way too much white!