Shetland Hens

[sjango]

Week one update: the Bruges Fighter chick did not survive the weekend but that was expected with his failure to thrive. Fortunately, the Shetland Hen chicks are doing great and the brooding with the radiant heat plate is so much better than using a heat lamp.

That's great news! I switched to a brooder plate this last year and love it. It is much better than the old red heat lamp I was using prior.

 

[HawaiiHomestead]

Everyone is growing up fast! Here are some more progress pics. Real feathers are coming in now at 4.5 wks. I'm guessing 5 cockerels, 7 pullets at the moment and would be very happy with that ratio if it comes to fruition. Basing my gender guesses on big tails and tufts = cockerel.

OMG and they are super friendly! My Barnies and one Marans tolerate me touching them, but the Shetlands run and jump into my hands. 2 of them seem to have a thing for hanging out on my shoulder... @Chicken Heel are yours that way too?

 

[Chicken Heel]

Everyone is growing up fast! Here are some more progress pics. Real feathers are coming in now at 4.5 wks. I'm guessing 5 cockerels, 7 pullets at the moment and would be very happy with that ratio if it comes to fruition. Basing my gender guesses on big tails and tufts = cockerel.

OMG and they are super friendly! My Barnies and one Marans tolerate me touching them, but the Shetlands run and jump into my hands. 2 of them seem to have a thing for hanging out on my shoulder... @Chicken Heel are yours that way too?

My six are doing well and will be 4 weeks old on Monday. They are very friendly like yours. I think I have 3 pullets and 3 cockerels which is good. Three have distinct tail feathers, have mostly feathered out and have the pullet body type while the other three have blockier body types with less feathers. They have really grown this week and I am considering moving them to their outside coop tomorrow. The 100 gallon Rubbermaid tub has made a nice brooder but the space is getting tighter by the hour.

 

[sjango]

They are darling, I adore crested breeds and think Shetlands look particularly cute with the size crest they have at adulthood compared to the bit excessive Polish-style crest. So exciting!

 

[Chicken Heel]

My six are doing well and will be 4 weeks old on Monday. They are very friendly like yours. I think I have 3 pullets and 3 cockerels which is good. Three have distinct tail feathers, have mostly feathered out and have the pullet body type while the other three have blockier body types with less feathers. They have really grown this week and I am considering moving them to their outside coop tomorrow. The 100 gallon Rubbermaid tub has made a nice brooder but the space is getting tighter by the hour.

As an update, I moved the chicks into the coop last evening. It was around 50 degrees F and I had the brooder plate with the heater setting turned on. But when I placed them under it, they moved away from it and settled down against the back wall. They were doing fine at daybreak this morning checking out their new digs, eating and drinking water.

 

[Emberhaven]

Can anyone give an update on their Shetland chickens? I'm interested in this breed (combining a love of Scotland, chickens, and preservation). But I'm having a hard time learning more about them. How many eggs a year? Are they broody? Weight, etc?

 

[HawaiiHomestead]

Can anyone give an update on their Shetland chickens? I'm interested in this breed (combining a love of Scotland, chickens, and preservation). But I'm having a hard time learning more about them. How many eggs a year? Are they broody? Weight, etc?

Warning, my update is unfortunate at best. Everything was going great, the Shetland chicks were all friendly and thriving. I put them out in the big coop with the Barnies at ~8 weeks. They were quite a bit smaller, but they all got along well. Flock master adopted them as his own, teaching them how to find bugs and snuggling up with them at night. A few weeks later there was a massacre. based on the footprints, I believe it started with a mongoose digging a tunnel into the run and dragging young Shetland chickens out of it. I wont go into the details, but there were also owl and hawk prints present in the aftermath. 2 survived that but were lost in a similar event another few weeks later. The Barnies are not as people loving as the Shetlands, but they have proven much more resilient to predators. I had some bachelors free ranging full time for a bit and never had a problem. I'm wiring in the runs 360 now, so mongoose can't dig their way in. It's only been a stealing eggs problem since though.

 

[Chicken Heel]

Can anyone give an update on their Shetland chickens? I'm interested in this breed (combining a love of Scotland, chickens, and preservation). But I'm having a hard time learning more about them. How many eggs a year? Are they broody? Weight, etc?

While not on the level of Hawaii Homestead's unfortunate experience, I have ended up with 1 hen and 2 roosters from my original six that I ordered last November from Greenfire Farms. One pullet died from what I thought at the time was Coccidiosis at around eight weeks of age. A second pullet died a few weeks ago from failure to thrive after battling neurological issues for months and a cockerel had died back in February from basically the same symptoms. I'm unsure if those subsequent deaths were also related to the effects of Cocci or not. But I believe that there are also genetic issues at hand given the overall reduced numbers of the breed. The remaining three Shetlands have done fine thus far and the hen has turned out to be quite a fine layer of small green eggs. They are also some of the friendliest chickens that I have ever had. I hope to hatch some eggs from the hen this fall or next spring. I do wonder if there are other breeders out there for potential genetic diversity gains. And I also wonder what potential breeds could be crossbred with them to improve their robustness. Please share your thoughts and insights as warranted.

 

[Emberhaven]

Re: improving breed, I was wondering about crossing Shetlands with Whiting True Blue, which are homogenous blue layers with potentially 300 eggs per year, due to their Leghorn parentage. I realize this wouldn't be preserving the breed necessarily, but making an American (specifically Coloradan, since WTBs were bred here in the '90s) version of the breed. Maybe if the offspring were backcrossed to Shetlands, this would be more of an improvement than a hybrid?

I'm not a breeder at all, but very interested in learning everything I can before hatching WTBs later this summer. And as I learn more about Shetlands, I start daydreaming about a Shetland flock to show off at the Scottish Highland Games!

 

[CrestsAndEggs]

I have a small flock of Shetland hens, they do have some fertility issues. So far this spring I'm seeing about 20% hatch rate from my flock's eggs. I plan to get numbers up as much as possible this season and then switch to the clan mating system to see if I can improve fertility.
Crossbreeding and then backcrossing sounds like a project that's a bit too scrupulous for me - if anyone else tries it, I too would be interested to see what happens.