Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[ki4got]

my roos all spar now and then, but not usually too hard for too long... then again they are free ranging and outnumbered by girls, so they get distracted easily.

IMO the roo to cook is the one that goes after YOU first... till then let them work it out. they will. SFH isn't a game breed like the old english and such...

 

[Bulldogma]

My roos are being rotten. I looked out the basement walkout a couple days ago to see them doing a standoff. I yelled at them, they ran away, but apparently they started fighting again where I couldn't see them. That night, when I went out to feed and start closing coops, they were all bloody

and every morning sine, it seems to start with a tiff. No more injuries, but I'm starting to worry about this. I have never had this problem before; I've always had a couple roosters, they know their rank, and that is that. The only issue is the girls...they have none. I have some very young pullets I'm still growing (I have 2 EE and 2 Maran, so I can pull their eggs for eating) but in a separate area...could that be why they are fighting?
I don't know which one to eat

they are both so pretty and uniquely colored. I wanted chicks from both.

My first thought is that you probably don't have a good hen to rooster ratio. How many of your hens kept with these two roos are of breeding age? Generally you want at least 5 hens to 1 roo, though 3 to 1 isn't too bad. Anything less is asking for trouble in that your roos will be fighting for breeding rights. If you don't want to get rid of either roo, you could get some more breeding age LF hens to put with them... only drawback there is that you should quarantine new birds for 7-14 days so you don't lose your flock to disease.

If more hens is not an option right now, and your roos keep fighting, keep the more "people friendly" rooster. You can always put the other one up on Craig's List - you might find a new home for him fairly easily as these birds are both rare and beautiful.

Just my 2 cents

 

[jbarrett]

Now before Y'll go making me out as a nice Guy. He did leave here with 10 chicks and maby at least 30 quail. He also left some dollar bills, BUTT no where near what I would normal have got.
It will all go for feed<g>

YEAH listen to him he is NOT just a nice guy.....HE IS A GREAT, AMAZING, KIND GUY pleasure doing business with and just an all around NICE guy!! Thank you Big Jim

 

[jbarrett]

Here are my BABIES!!!!! I am so excited these are the birds I got today from LazyQ aka Big Jim! Great Guy and birds! Total worth the 3 hour drive! I also got some A&M quail and japanese coturnix!

A&M are the white ones!
Also i will get better pictures of the Swedes when I finish their pen! But it will be kinda busy around here for a little bit, I dont know if I told yall but the birds in my photos are mine......I got them from the old man I helped out, he is not doing so well so he gave me all the birds and told me to take good care of them!! I hope he will be ok but we are moving the pens and coop to our house tomorrow will post pictures when we are all done! So I am excited I already have some of the birds here some in my pictures but I will add more!

 

[Leahs Mom]

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

I don't know whether to rejoice or cry we have one SFH laying 4 eggs a week and 5 that should have started laying a couple of three weeks ago.

 

[TarheelBirdy]

My two SFH girls are nine months old and neither are laying yet

 

[Bulldogma]

Hey everyone - my beautiful SFH cockerel Gunnar is trying to make himself famous.

Check out his "advertisement" HERE.

(And be sure to sign up to win the giveaway!)


And Tarheel - by any chance have your 9-month-old birds been moulting recently? Moulting paired with the winter cold and fewer hours of light can put off laying for a lot of pullets.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Hey everyone - my beautiful SFH cockerel Gunnar is trying to make himself famous.

Egotistical Rooster, eh?

 

[SunnySkies]

Right now, we have no large breed ladies except for these young pullets, and they are still peeping, TBH. Definitely not ready to go out with the boys. The bantam hens are protected by a little roo that beats the SFH roos behinds every day, and the Silkie girls are in a coop for their own protection, so the two boys have nothing. I feel bad for them, but I'm not getting adult hens from somewhere...one word: diseases. Right now, other than fighting, they are both respectful of persons -- even my toddler can walk through the yard and they don't even approach him -- and the other animals. Both have turned into lovely gentlemen, other than fighting each other (they remind me of teenage boys going back behind the barn and beating on each other). We might have to hang on to spring, when these girls are bigger. I put them in different coops for the night last night, with Phelps going in with the 3/4 grown last hatch of roosters from October, and I haven't seen any fighting today. Olympus has blood all over his comb and neck from a few days ago, but I can't catch him to clean it off. I put out a lot of different foods for them to peck at and scratch in the other day, even though they free range. They might be bored; they survived the rooster eradication project of a month ago, when I slaughtered all the roos except for them, and I used to find the bachelor flock in the woods, in the horse pasture, etc. It is also quite chilly here now, so they might not be roaming about because it's cold. Poor boys. Hopefully I can rectify the ratio in spring, either by buying some SFH chicks or hatching some.