Olandsk Dwarf Chickens

[Petrichor]

I LOVE the picture of the one on your hand. They are so cute! I want one lol. Shes so tiny but so adorable!

 

[mlm Mike]

Chooklet - Nice photos. I haven't set many eggs, 2 sets of 7. The first set were the first 7 eggs, so didn't really expect great results, 3/7 hatched. The second set 6/7 hatched, the one that didn't never developed.

 

[Chooklet]

So 9 out of 14 - very good record. How are they all doing?

 

[mlm Mike]

So 9 out of 14 - very good record. How are they all doing?

Well out of the first 3, I culled one. It messed up its leg, dislocated or something, one of the others has real bad crooked toes, but gets along great, the third is fine. The next 6 are all doing well, feet/toes good, healthy and lively.

 

[BerrytangleFarm]

I guess we're gonna do this breed since I just got a trio from Greenfire

Can those with the Swedish Flower Hens tell me how they compare. We're going to keep a flock of Icelandics for sure, but I'm toying with keeping a flock of SFH since we have two that just hatched and several more due to hatch next week. I LOVE our chocolate Eng Orps, absolutely the most friendly chickens I've ever had, and I'm hoping to find another breed that is this personable.

 

[Chooklet]

I guess we're gonna do this breed since I just got a trio from Greenfire

Congratulations on your new birds! Pictures please.

 

[BerrytangleFarm]

Congratulations on your new birds! Pictures please.

They'll be here next week and I'll gladly post lots of pics

 

[Chooklet]

OK - have a safe flight little ones!

 

[alohachickens]

Copying from my response to a general question about the breed asked in another thread - thought the info might be useful to the group as a whole. I continue to have challenges with hatching and am very interested in hearing of others' experiences - if you don't want to post to the entire group please PM me.

Oh - and despite swearing that I was done hatching for the hear I have another 10 olandsk getting ready for lock down next week, and yes, just set another 13 eggs Friday night.

I just started raising the Olandsk dwarfs this year, from a couple of breeding trios that came from birds originally imported by Greenfire. Not sure if you have seen the discussion thread on this breed:https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/533977/olandsk-dwarf-chickens. I am not aware of a flock in the US that did not come from Greenfire's birds, but if there is one I would love to know about it in order to increase the diversity in my flock!

I have been setting tons of eggs. Fertility has been amazing, but virility in the egg is not as good as with may of my other bantam breeds (I also breed black mottled Japanese bantams and a few color projects (calico and crele) of bantam cochins). I haven't compiled stats yet (on my to do list), but am finding that about 20-25% of the eggs stop developing after about a week, and another 20-25% stop developing at or during lock down. I am not sure if this is due to the fact that my birds are all under one year of age - won't know that for another few months - or if this is "normal" for the breed. I have heard from a few others with similar experience with their results - I would love to hear from more Olandsk breeders to see what their results are.

They have done quite well in the summer heat, though I live in an area where it rarely hits triple digits and on those handful of 100+ days I make sure that they have plenty of water. Coming from Sweden I imagine they are fairly cold hardy. Again, my area is quite temperate, with occasional winter nights in the high twenties but only rarely does it go lower than that. My experience with their personality is that they are inquisitive, curious, friendly, particularly those that I have raised in a brooder and handled often, and LOVE their dust baths.

As to history, I have done a lot of searching in the internet, and with the help of Google Translate have been able to find some interesting Swedish web sites with information about the breed. It is a land race, with no set SOP and with variability in leg color (yellow or white), comb (straight or rose), and some variance in color from locale to locale. My cockerels are similar, but one has yellow legs and the other has white. I have 2 different colors of pullets - one is a much darker base with the black, white & buff pattern and the other three are a much lighter base with the same pattern. Here are a few pictures of my breeding flock, along with some of the juveniles:

Here you can see the two different color forms of my pullets. This picture is outdated - the girls have much bigger combs now.




One of my cockerels - the other is a bit more orange in hackles/saddle.


some sleepy babies - about 2 weeks old in this picture:


little boy, at about 6 weeks old (with JB and Cochin friends)

I had one girl get broody this summer - gave her some eggs to sit on . She did great, and is now raising 3 little babies.
Here she is with the first 2 that hatched:




I'll copy this over to the other thread that I referenced above so that we don't have 2 different threads going on such a tiny breed. I am really excited about the breed - I think they are just adorable, and am excited at the prospect of helping to increase numbers and spread the breed in the US.

Chooklet - and others on this thread.

Just saw eggs for these on an Ebay auction and was surprised at how much they resembled my project Alohas.

I have been working on a breeding project for the last few years that began with a banty-sized random bred hen. I've been trying to get size up on my birds but it is difficult, they keep wanting to revert back to the Banty size when I cross very closely related individuals. Here is the original Banty hen that the Alohas started from, back in 2008. She is all American bred from unknown bloodlines. This project began before the Swedish Flower and these latest Dwarf imports:







Her great-great-great-great granddaughter (however many generations I can't really count) who is small, this is a photo of her I took today:



(Not an Olandsk Dwarf.)

I am currently trying to get these bigger, not smaller, but mine keep reverting back to the small size when I breed closely related smaller ones together.

I thought the similarities were amazing between these two strains that are completely unrelated! Especially my older, smallest stock. I did a double take when I saw the Ebay auction for eggs.

 

[mlm Mike]

I guess we're gonna do this breed since I just got a trio from Greenfire

Can those with the Swedish Flower Hens tell me how they compare. We're going to keep a flock of Icelandics for sure, but I'm toying with keeping a flock of SFH since we have two that just hatched and several more due to hatch next week. I LOVE our chocolate Eng Orps, absolutely the most friendly chickens I've ever had, and I'm hoping to find another breed that is this personable.

CONGRATULATIONS! You're going to love them. Be prepared for lots of little eggs, they seem to be good layers, in my experience anyways. I have a trio of SFH, one hen is ultra friendly, always right by you, doesn't mind being touched, my Olandsk Dwarfs aren't as friendly as that, but they're not very skittish, fairly brave. I was surprised how far they ranged the first time I let them free range. They are really gorgeous, they pictures you've seen haven't done them justice, once you see them in person. Please post pictures when they arrive.