Hedemora Thread

[stoneunhenged]

Hedemora, a native Swedish breed, may be the most cold hardy chickens in the world. They routinely lay eggs down to 5°F and free range at -5°F for hours at a time. They have a unique layer of down under their feathers and some birds of this breed have fur-like feathers that cover their bodies. There is quite a bit of variability in this landrace that over a period of centuries adapted to a climate in Sweden that is nearly on the same northern latitude as Anchorage, Alaska. Hedemora come in various colors. Their outer feathers may be hard or fluffy, and their legs may be clean or feathered. There are probably between a thousand and two thousand of these birds remaining in the world. Here's a hedemora pullet:

And here's a hedemora cockerel:

 

[stoneunhenged]

One of the coolest --and coldest-- things I've seen is a flock of hedemora happily scratching in the Montana snow at Christmas this year.

 

[altair]

For any nerds like me who like Star Trek, I give you Gul Macet:

 

[Svarthona]

I love my little colourful landrace flock

Atm I only have one pure bred Hedemora hen in "yellow" and yellow/blue tail feathers in my flock.
Haha, sorry for the crude colour name, but I have no idea what that colour would be called in English.

The last pic shows her when she just started laying (at almost 7 months) last autumn.
Small saw-tooth comb and the fluffy bloomers are typical for this breed.
The wattles are actually on the "big" side for a Hedemora.

Everything is relative I guess.
She's one of the feather legged variety and lays off white eggs with brown speckles.

 

[klf73]

Well, I got 6 of 'em and couldn't get a group pic

but got this one

 

[klf73]

Hi,
I was hoping for some help sexing these babies....they are almost 8 weeks
they didn't like being separated from their siblings so they kept running back to the pen

I hope I have them right, nothing to really gauge it off of since I can't find any pics of them anywhere.

#1 pullet?

#2 pullet? wow, sun must have been reflecting just right. there is nothing wrong with the eye..

#3 pullet?

#4 pullet?

#5 cockeral

probably wishful thinking on gender but I also have one that is a week younger and has a huge red comb too even though he is much smaller than these chicks
I also think it is cool that the leg feathering end at or near ankle and doesnt extend to the toes...

 

[klf73]

I wanted to add a pic of my youngest hedemora, a smooth feathered cockeral
This pic doesn't show his color well but he wouldn't hang out in the sun long enough

This is him in the sun, but not a great pic

Eta- the pic does not do him justice, he looks metallic in person...

 

[klf73]

these are my new babies, these are going into a separate pen from my other hedemora

 

[Dentaku]

Some pictures of my little flock:

 

[Dentaku]

Long time since i've been here! I got my first eggs from my Hedemora's this week!

It seems they needed some REAL winter to start laying eggs, the temperature dropped to below -20C and i don't have any extra heat in the hen house. Well, my little flock sure lived up to their reputation as a hardy breed; they didn't seem to mind the cold at all and all i had to do was give them fresh water a couple of times a day - even though they don't mind eating snow they need to be able to drink properly in order to eat enough to stay warm. Now when it's just around -7 the temperature in the hen house seems to stay above zero though.

I'll make sure to take some new pics!