Norwegian Jaerhon

[alpinefarm]

Dark and light hens look alike except Dark hens have grey and dark grey stripes in the down on the underside of their body and their bottom, while the Light hens are light brown in this area. Adult roos will have mainly white feathering, though patterned, but the Dark roos will have some darker coloring on their backs. In Light Jærhøns chicks the males are yellow, females are yellow with a visible brown stripe from their head and down along the back (chipmunk chicks). In the Dark Jærhøns chicks the males are light brown with a large uneven yellow spot in the head/neck area. Females are dark brown with a small spot on the head.

I think the hens you are calling light are what the Norwegians are call greys. The greys are not in their SOP, but some breeders in Norway are working on them. I think the E locus for Dark is eb, Light is e+ and both are gold ss. The Greys seem to be eb and may be genetically silver SS. I think some Darks are Ss(golden) as the hens neck color is slighter lighter in some Darks and this would be where the silver S comes from. The genetics are just theories on my part based on by observations and they may not be right. I am looking forward to learning more.

Oh, thank you for the enlightenment! I've never had a chipmunk chick, so that is very helpful to know that what I get is "grey"...

 

[Dr Bjorn Netland]

I have had the same issues with dying and have decided to give up on the Jaerhons. They are beautiful birds, but the chicks seem to be too fragile. I have hatched 3 times from 2 different people. The last was Amy's. I had 8 chicks hatch-4 boys, 4 girls. They lived about a week and die off soon after. I don't have problems with other chicks doing that at all. It is frustrating. I had 13 hatch around Christmas-9 were girls. They lived about two weeks and just began dying one by one. If I could figure out what is happening I would be happy to try again, but it is too expensive to keep trying and losing everything.

Sorry about mortality issues. My own experience has been the exact opposite; my Jaer chicks have been the consistently strongest and hardiest of the chicks I raise. I have kept (too) many rosters from the three original breeding pens in order to obtain as high as possible a level of genetic spread as I can from those birds. It looks like Ideal has been pretty good at following the same sort of program, for I have purchased chicks from them twice in order to bring in "new" blood (to the extent that is really possible since the original hatch was 3 cockerels and 6 pullets with all descendants being represented in our US Jaer population). I don't know what is wrong or what may be the cause of the high mortality of chicks, but I am very happy that mine are still going strong. Perhaps getting roosters from different flocks could help? I just don't know.
One of the great traits I have seen in my chicks is their very strong resistance to Marek's. White Leghorns and Barnevelders (and a couple of other breeds in my flock fell victims to this scourge to the point that I did not want to mess with them any more.

 

[CibolaChooks]

Hey Amy. i got three so far (a day early). One more is pipped this morning and i hopefully more will come today. 100% fertile 3 had blood rings at day 10 and nine maid it to lock down.

 

[Amyable]

Quote: Congrats! So far you have 2 girls and a boy!

Thanks for the update.

 

[tdhenson86]

Hey Amy. i got three so far (a day early). One more is pipped this morning and i hopefully more will come today. 100% fertile 3 had blood rings at day 10 and nine maid it to lock down.

Congratulations! I had great luck with Amy's eggs. I started mine on slightly lower protein and added ACV to their water for the first 2 weeks. They're now 2 months old and I haven't lost any.

 

[Amyable]

Congratulations! I had great luck with Amy's eggs. I started mine on slightly lower protein and added ACV to their water for the first 2 weeks. They're now 2 months old and I haven't lost any.

Good to hear too! I also use ACV in all the waterers, all the time. Keeps the algae away and is a health tonic. We just came off a week-long heatwave, heat indexes in the 90-100's, and I didn't lose a single bird, even chicks. I think the ACV helps with stress too. Though apparently its not enough to keep everybody laying; even the Jaers have all taken time off once the heat arrived.

 

[aurissavannahs]

Last weekend I had an interested experience. I supplied 20 Norwegian Jaerhon hens for a Terry Ryan Chicken Camp. This was a two day training camp at
Cold Nose College in Murphy, NC for dog trainers to improve their dog training skills by training chickens. It was a lot of work to get the chickens ready for the camp, but the Jaerhons did great so the work was worth it and made a good impression on the trainers. Bonita Ash, professional photographer, took pictures at the event. This is the link to her pictures of my hens. http://www.ashfordstudio.com/EventPhotography/Chicken-Camp Hope you enjoy the pictures.

 

[Duramaxgirl]

Last weekend I had an interested experience. I supplied 20 Norwegian Jaerhon hens for a Terry Ryan Chicken Camp. This was a two day training camp at

Cold Nose College in Murphy, NC for dog trainers to improve their dog training skills by training chickens. It was a lot of work to get the chickens ready for the camp, but the Jaerhons did great so the work was worth it and made a good impression on the trainers. Bonita Ash, professional photographer, took pictures at the event. This is the link to her pictures of my hens.  http://www.ashfordstudio.com/EventPhotography/Chicken-Camp Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Wow super cool photos! How did you get your jaerhons to be so calm? Mine are rather wild!!

 

[CibolaChooks]

Congrats! So far you have 2 girls and a boy!

Thanks for the update.

3 weeks old and those lil boys have some rather large super red combs. i think their combs turned red faster than any other breed ive ever seen.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

3 weeks old and those lil boys have some rather large super red combs. i think their combs turned red faster than any other breed ive ever seen.

Out of the 30 or so breeds I've had, Jaers mature faster than any of them. I guess when the growing season is so short, nature adjusts.