Safely breeding crested Swedish Flower

[StinkyAcres]

I am considering hatching eggs from my favorite hens who are Ameraucana-type Easter Eggers. It will be my first time hatching eggs and breeding my own birds. My cockerel is a Swedish Flower and he is crested. I know breeding crested to crested is not advisable. Anything I should worry about with this pairing? Also, one of the hens is nearly 9 years old - could this cause any problems? Thanks!

The roo:

The hens:

 

[SourRoses]

Interesting mix!

As far as the older hens, just candle the eggs before setting. One of my oldest hens lays very porous eggs that don't make it (too much moisture loss).
Our eldest lays strange shapes. It can be really amusing, but most of them are too narrow to hatch. The chick needs room to get into position when it has developed, so a narrow egg is too restrictive.
If the physical characteristics of the individual egg are fine, there's nothing wrong with hatching them.

* One might wonder about genetic abnormalities due to the age of the hens ova. Since there's that myth out there about human women and our ova deteriorating as we age. It's been found not to be true! The ova are stable in a non-matured state.
The increase in disorders like down syndrome, etc are actually from the sperm side of things, because older women are more likely to have older partners. Sperm are created continually, and over the years the production facilities deteriorate and start copying more errors. I thought that was interesting!

 

[StinkyAcres]

Interesting mix!

As far as the older hens, just candle the eggs before setting. One of my oldest hens lays very porous eggs that don't make it (too much moisture loss).
Our eldest lays strange shapes. It can be really amusing, but most of them are too narrow to hatch. The chick needs room to get into position when it has developed, so a narrow egg is too restrictive.
If the physical characteristics of the individual egg are fine, there's nothing wrong with hatching them.

* One might wonder about genetic abnormalities due to the age of the hens ova. Since there's that myth out there about human women and our ova deteriorating as we age. It's been found not to be true! The ova are stable in a non-matured state.
The increase in disorders like down syndrome, etc are actually from the sperm side of things, because older women are more likely to have older partners. Sperm are created continually, and over the years the production facilities deteriorate and start copying more errors. I thought that was interesting!

Thank you so much! Very good to know.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I am considering hatching eggs from my favorite hens who are Ameraucana-type Easter Eggers. It will be my first time hatching eggs and breeding my own birds. My cockerel is a Swedish Flower and he is crested. I know breeding crested to crested is not advisable. Anything I should worry about with this pairing? Also, one of the hens is nearly 9 years old - could this cause any problems? Thanks!

The roo:

The hens:

Where did you hear that breeding Crested to Crested birds weren't Advisable?

 

[StinkyAcres]

Where did you hear that breeding Crested to Crested birds weren't Advisable?

I think I found it researching Swedish Flower Hens through Google. Breeding two crested birds can result in vaulted skulls and other problems associated with the double crested gene.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I think I found it researching Swedish Flower Hens through Google. Breeding two crested birds can result in vaulted skulls and other problems associated with the double crested gene.

I've never had it crop up in my None Vaulted Skulled Silkies, or other issues. If I remember right Vaulted Skulls are a Recessive Mutation, so if a line doesn't have it, you're good to go.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I've never had it crop up in my None Vaulted Skulled Silkies, or other issues. If I remember right Vaulted Skulls are a Recessive Mutation, so if a line doesn't have it, you're good to go.

Interesting. Here are some discussions I've found:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/crested-swedish-flower-chicken-breeding.1465229/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/764778697059746/posts/2318020475068886/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/764778697059746/posts/2631150653755865/

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Breeding crested to not crested shouldn’t result in vaulted skulls if your rooster doesn’t have a vaulted skull

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Crests were definitely an issue way back when Swedish Flower Hens were first growing in popularity in the U.S. I ended up adopting a hen that was out of a crested x crested breeding years and years ago, and she had a lot of issues with her crest and head. Particularly, her crest covered her eyes so that other birds often got close to her and then pecked her on the head to shoo her away, and she always had odd behaviors from that happening like her head was more sensitive to such pecks than it should have been. There definitely was something to what they were saying about it back then.

With regards to the original question, though, being that the Easter-eggers pictured are not crested, I wouldn't think you'd have any issues with that in your mixes. I might hesitate to cross any back to their father or cross crested to crested in the mixes just in case, but I doubt you'd have any issues in a first gen cross as described.

As far as the older hen goes, my old hens have a lot of issues with thinner and more porous shells, so that would be the only thing I would worry about in her case, personally. I've hatched from ~7-8 year old hens and gotten perfectly healthy chicks as long as the eggs were sturdy enough and were handled with care during the incubation process to prevent bacterial contamination.

 

[StinkyAcres]

Crests were definitely an issue way back when Swedish Flower Hens were first growing in popularity in the U.S. I ended up adopting a hen that was out of a crested x crested breeding years and years ago, and she had a lot of issues with her crest and head. Particularly, her crest covered her eyes so that other birds often got close to her and then pecked her on the head to shoo her away, and she always had odd behaviors from that happening like her head was more sensitive to such pecks than it should have been. There definitely was something to what they were saying about it back then.

Breeding crested to not crested shouldn’t result in vaulted skulls if your rooster doesn’t have a vaulted skull

Thank you! My cockerel's crest is definitely bigger than what is preferred for a SFH and it obstructs his forward vision. But he doesn't have a vaulted skull as far as I know.

ith regards to the original question, though, being that the Easter-eggers pictured are not crested, I wouldn't think you'd have any issues with that in your mixes. I might hesitate to cross any back to their father or cross crested to crested in the mixes just in case, but I doubt you'd have any issues in a first gen cross as described.

Great, thanks! I am not planning to back cross.

As far as the older hen goes, my old hens have a lot of issues with thinner and more porous shells, so that would be the only thing I would worry about in her case, personally. I've hatched from ~7-8 year old hens and gotten perfectly healthy chicks as long as the eggs were sturdy enough and were handled with care during the incubation process to prevent bacterial contamination.

Hmm, that may be a problem as I do not have an incubator and plan on using a broody duck to hatch them. My older hens' eggs do have thinner shells. How can you tell if an egg is more porous? Is there a way to tell if the shell will be strong enough before incubating?