The Aloha Chicken Project

[Deerfield Acres]

#11




#12 This is the tiniest bird of the entire bunch.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

So, those are the most unique members of my cockerels. I have a few more but they are either carbon copies or inferior copies of these birds so I didn't include them.

When I look at my cockerels I can think of reasons why I need to keep all of these guys so please help steer me in the right direction. I know I have another 10 weeks to go but would like to have an idea in my head of who I may be keeping.

For the cockerels I have the following hens: 5 speckled sussex who are all spotting up very well, 1 large Buff Orp, 1 large Buff Rock, 2 New Hamps.

I have more than 5 SX hens but the five I've chosen are the most spotted.

 

[alohachickens]

WOW! Those are some YELLOW legs!

And look how tall he is, geeeez!

Put him in with some pure Sussex . . . keep the hens from that cross, they should be HUGE! I'd be really excited to see if the babies showed the spots?? How exciting!!!

Sommer

#4 This is the same guy I shared a pic of earlier. Look at all the white spots coming in around his head. He's got it all, good size, spots and yellow legs!

 

[alohachickens]

Oh goody!

a reason to buy more chickens!!

So, I need some sussex and New Hampshire hens, correct? Any idea who might have them? I'll have a look in buy-sell forum.

You know, I have thought about doing hatching eggs on these breeds . . . I have no idea where Laree got her Sussex eggs, but someone on here sent her some, and she gave me an extra rooster that she hatched from that stock. He grew to be HUGE! I have heard a couple of private Sussex breeders have gotten the size of their birds up, beyond what you see in a hatchery.

I also have seen another thread on this forum about "German New Hampshire Reds". I have no idea if this strain is bigger than hatchery birds, but if you can find out any info on either of these leads, please let me know! I'd be interested in adding some really high quality stock to our Aloha lines. (I mean, why not?)

 

[alohachickens]

Puffy Cheeks here is from my neighbor's stock . . . or Laree's stock. I culled all my puffy-cheekers. So he's closely related but not "quite" as closely related. He is also very flashy with a lot of white on him. I would consider putting him in with your Buffs and NHR's. Cull the puffy cheek babies . . . or not.

Some of these traits I'm not stressing about so much at this point, because as we add more and more bloodlines of birds that do not have puffy cheeks, or funky combs, those traits are going to eventually fade away as we bring in more Sussex and NHR plus the Swedish lines. So he would be OK to use and might diversify the lines just a little bit.

#7 Another wild and crazy guy with puffier cheeks. These two guys aren't small either, they are broader shouldered than all but the largest cockerels.

If you have the time and can mess with it, a very "scientific" way to go about it, would be to hatch eggs from his breeder pen only as one group.. When the chicks from this guy over NHR and Buff hens hatch out, cull the babies with puffy cheeks, and keep the babies with yellow legs. Then when they are old enough to tell their genders, cull the roosters and keep the yellow-legged hens. It would be very tedious to hatch and raise them apart from each other, just to get five or so yellow-legged hens, but once they were grown you could tag their legs and know you had a specific genetic cross. Goal would be to get 5-8 yellow-legged, non-puffy cheeked hens from this cross. (Enough to fill a breeder pen of their own.)

Then you could cull this rooster, and try a new rooster with the same hens for a fresh batch of chicks with different DNA on the dad's side.

I'd try to get you more chicks or eggs, so you could find a new rooster to put with these future hens. (Maybe something from Stephen's pens - I am still bummed you didn't get any of his stock.) But you have to admit, this kids from this guy certainly would carry some flashy color . . . . . and would not be "directly" related to my stock.

 

[alohachickens]

Hmm, I don't like to see aggression going on in the flock. So that combined with smaller size gives me pause. Usually, the Aloha roosters live together fairly peacefully. I've actually seen more aggression in the Swedish and in Cheeto's kids than any of the "pure" little Aloha roosters. The three Swedish roos would gang up on one hen, and Cheeto would terrorize Flame without mercy! But Butterscotch and Flame could live together and even share hens with no issues at all. Interesting! With the yellow legs on them, I'm guessing those roos could be by Cheeto? But I wonder why they would be smaller, then? Weird . . .

However, #10 in particular, had a LOT of white. I wonder about trying him with the solid Buff hens and NHR hens? (After you were done with Puffy-Cheeks #7.)

You would keep the hens from that cross that displayed yellow legs. Most likely, the chicks would not show any white spotting on the first generation, but using #10 certainly would guarantee that they carry some flashy color in the background . . .

Goal would be to keep the yellow-legged hen chicks from this cross, and later mix them either with a pure Sussex rooster, or with the offspring from your pen of colorful Aloha hens x Sussex rooster. (I am guessing that since you are keeping a pure Sussex rooster, that most of the small colorful Aloha hens will be going in with him.)

Those three roosters are looking the most useful at this point! #4, #7 and #10 are the ones I'd keep my eyes on. It doesn't hurt to keep a backup for a while, things really only get CRAZY when they reach breeding age. You still have a couple months before they totally mature and become completely hormonal. LOL!

So maybe keep the "Top 6" roosters at this point . . . Puffy Cheeks #7 and a back-up, #10 White Confetti and keep #9 Confetti as a back-up, and the big yellow guy #4, plus another back-up for him. Cull the rest of the roosters, to bring more peace to the flock for a while. That's just my advice! You might find some changes on the remaining roosters as they mature even more. All the more reason to keep a few extra just in case . . . . but there are many that can be eliminated for sure at this point!

The following are the smallest cockerels but the coloring is fantastic! They are also the most feisty and one of them slashed #12s neck badly enough for him to bleed. Yikes!


#9




#10

 

[alohachickens]

Hi Karen!

Just noticed this too . . . so you have:

Buff Rock Roos
Sussex Roos

And you have:

Sussex Hens
2 Buff Hens
2 NHR Hens

Pen 1 - Sussex Rooster. Take your hens with yellow legs and try those with the Sussex rooster first . . . especially the hens with few spots and yellow legs.

Pen 2 - Buff Rooster. Put your most spotted pale-legged hens in with the Buff Roo . . . . keep some babies with yellow legs and best size.

Then I'd try taking out all the lesser spotted Aloha hens, leaving all the most colorful hens (regardless of leg color) in one pen, and putting them with the Sussex rooster at the very end, to see if you can create hens with LOTS of white spotting. (More than a normal Sussex.) Just ignore leg color and go for nice size and pattern on the chicks. Then you can cull the Sussex and Buff Rooster, and hopefully by then I'd have sent you some new eggs or chicks to grow some replacement roos.

Pen 3 - Buff Spotted Rooster #4 with Sussex. Meanwhile, you'd have a pen with the pure Sussex hens with yellow legged golden rooster.

Pen 4 - Spotted Aloha Rooster #7 with Buff and Sussex hens. And another breeder pen with the Buff and NHR hens. One Aloha rooster to start, and rotate a second one in later. (Or toss both in there, if they get along OK, and see who is dominant. The less dominant one will not be able to breed, the dominant roo will stop him. Then cull the dominant rooster after you have hatched enough from that pen, and the less dominant roo will then step up to the plate. This would enable you to share one breeding pen and not have to house a rooster separately.)

If I had a nicer set-up, enough for four breeder pens, and had the stock you have to work with, this is how I'd set them up! But if you don't have room for all that, even if you have one or two breeder pens and then a big "open" pen for the rest of the chickens, that is how I would do my crosses. You could just set up one or two pens at a time and work your way through all the possible crosses slowly. (If you had to use fewer pens and rotate them out, like I have to do.) Either way would work . . . but you have a lot of nice possible crosses with your current stock, that's for sure!

 

[alohachickens]

Oh goody!

a reason to buy more chickens!!

So, I need some sussex and New Hampshire hens, correct? Any idea who might have them? I'll have a look in buy-sell forum.

Runs - I did a little digging, and it turns out a BYC'er on here named kathyinmo might have some German New Hampshire hatching eggs for sale right now. They don't look to be cheap, but see what she can do for you? Even if you can manage to hatch out a couple of hens it might do wonderful things for the future body type of your Aloha strain. They look very massive.

I'd be interested in trying them myself, but it is the wrong time of year to hatch babies in AZ. Feel free to PM her and ask if anything is available!

Still haven't checked out the Sussex thread to see if anyone is selling larger-than-normal Sussex stock . . . .

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Hi Karen!

Just noticed this too . . . so you have:

Buff Rock Roos
Sussex Roos

And you have:

Sussex Hens
2 Buff Hens
2 NHR Hens

Pen 1 - Sussex Rooster. Take your hens with yellow legs and try those with the Sussex rooster first . . . especially the hens with few spots and yellow legs.

Pen 2 - Buff Rooster. Put your most spotted pale-legged hens in with the Buff Roo . . . . keep some babies with yellow legs and best size.

Then I'd try taking out all the lesser spotted Aloha hens, leaving all the most colorful hens (regardless of leg color) in one pen, and putting them with the Sussex rooster at the very end, to see if you can create hens with LOTS of white spotting. (More than a normal Sussex.) Just ignore leg color and go for nice size and pattern on the chicks. Then you can cull the Sussex and Buff Rooster, and hopefully by then I'd have sent you some new eggs or chicks to grow some replacement roos.

Pen 3 - Buff Spotted Rooster #4 with Sussex. Meanwhile, you'd have a pen with the pure Sussex hens with yellow legged golden rooster.

Pen 4 - Spotted Aloha Rooster #7 with Buff and Sussex hens. And another breeder pen with the Buff and NHR hens. One Aloha rooster to start, and rotate a second one in later. (Or toss both in there, if they get along OK, and see who is dominant. The less dominant one will not be able to breed, the dominant roo will stop him. Then cull the dominant rooster after you have hatched enough from that pen, and the less dominant roo will then step up to the plate. This would enable you to share one breeding pen and not have to house a rooster separately.)

If I had a nicer set-up, enough for four breeder pens, and had the stock you have to work with, this is how I'd set them up! But if you don't have room for all that, even if you have one or two breeder pens and then a big "open" pen for the rest of the chickens, that is how I would do my crosses. You could just set up one or two pens at a time and work your way through all the possible crosses slowly. (If you had to use fewer pens and rotate them out, like I have to do.) Either way would work . . . but you have a lot of nice possible crosses with your current stock, that's for sure!

I have the room and the four breeder pens (will be adding one more for the project) plus the hen house so I will follow your recommendations exactly. I know it's still a ways off but I'm really happy to be this close to hatching chicks!!!! EEEE! (Sorry, crazy chicken lady outburst). I'm planning to get another electric fence set up so I can move the breeder pens apart from the hen house group. That way the hen house group will have more room and it will be easier on the grass.

Thanks for your help Sommer!

Karen

 

[alohachickens]

Runs -

Here is a closed auction, I don't know if the seller still has eggs available but the spotting on these is pretty nice:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/645847/24-speckled-sussex-hatching-eggs-lf

And of course there is the idea of just ordering some from a hatchery, but if you go the hatchery route, try to check with Tamra to see where she got hers . . . and maybe try a new hatchery so if we do use Sussex in our Aloha lines, at least we are all ordering them from different hatcheries.

Those of you who have had Sussex - can you list your hatchery stock here? So we know what Speckled Sussex bloodlines have been used already?

For mine, we have had:

Privett Hatchery (two hens)
Meyer Hatchery (Stepen's hens)
Laree's gift roos - eggs hatched from a private BYC breeder (unknown but maybe I can find out?)

KarenS, and Tam'ra, can you add to this list the breeders where you got your Sussex hens from?

This way when we all start swapping eggs down the road, maybe we can have even more diverse lines if we keep trying new hatchery stock or private breeder stock . . . I'm thinking of placing a fall order for Speckled Sussex chicks either with Cackle Hatchery or maybe Ideal.