Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[Leahs Mom]

Here are my kiddos at 15 weeks (minus mystery black!)


Gray







Orange







Rooster Boy

 

[Goose and Fig]

Great pics!

As far as feed goes- seen as how these are a landrace breed, I am going with the whole grains and good old fashioned free ranging. If they can't thrive on that...

 

[SunnySkies]

I see a problem, and what can we do about it.  Out of hens hatched at home, less than half live.  My other chickens 90%.  Shipped swf maybe 5 to 10% survive. WHY!  Doe"s the chicken have a reaction to shipping? any kind of traveling? What is the problem.  The shipping people have brains.  I see this as a real ptoblem and would really appreciate your input.     Paul

Shipped EGGS of any breed don't hatch for me, pretty much. I even had some SFH shipped to a local lady who hatches chicks from shipped eggs of many breeds all the time, and she couldn't get them to hatch. I have some under a broody now and we shall see. If those don't hatch....well, I won't bother ordering eggs any longer.. However, I can hatch eggs either hand carried to me or I pick up with a 90-100% hatch rate (guess why I have a whole bunch of black chickens...).

But shipped BIRDS...no problemo. I haven't lost a single one in shipping. I had one die later, after a few weeks. Mine have been very resilient birds. I had them shipped from Greenfire Farms.

 

[Goose and Fig]

All of my shipped SFH died. The first order they all died and I never got to see them, the second order were shipped at about 3 weeks of age for some stupid reason and they all died eventually. I figure that is probably why the first order died as well.

I had 17 of 18 eggs shipped SFH hatch from Genelda last year though. And 100% hatch on some project eggs from Sparky Crows last week

 

[chiques chicks]

I have no trouble with SFH once they hatch. I don't use medicated feed, don't add vitamins. Treat them three same as everything else. I do feed a high protein starter, same as quail amd Turkey. I do have problems with hatching shipped SFH eggs, especially from the south. I think a large par of it is the USPS. Perhaps because of the region I live in they are handled differently or subject to more x-rays. I also notice a high percentage of detached air cells, regardless of packaging, particularly of SFH.
orpingtons and SFH set together (both shipped) have very different results. Just my experience. I know Sunny is in the same basic region, so I'm guessing something different happens with packages shipped here.
Just my thoughts.

 

[SunnySkies]

I've also wondered if something happens to eggs during shipping that some breeds are more sensitive to. Like my friend can hatch anythng but Plosh and SFH.

 

[ki4got]

I have no trouble with SFH once they hatch. I don't use medicated feed, don't add vitamins. Treat them three same as everything else. I do feed a high protein starter, same as quail amd Turkey. I do have problems with hatching shipped SFH eggs, especially from the south. I think a large par of it is the USPS. Perhaps because of the region I live in they are handled differently or subject to more x-rays. I also notice a high percentage of detached air cells, regardless of packaging, particularly of SFH.
orpingtons and SFH set together (both shipped) have very different results. Just my experience. I know Sunny is in the same basic region, so I'm guessing something different happens with packages shipped here.
Just my thoughts.

i think one important thing to mention is NOT using medicated feed... amprolluim inhibids absorption of thiamine (and preventing carbohydrate synthesis). it does little, in the low dosages in the feed, to do much about coccidia. IMO, IF you have a coccidia problem, do the 5 day treatment and be done with it. over longer periods of time, IMO you're just asking for problems.

personally, i add vitamins to the water only the first few days usually. what the heck, can't hurt, right? haven't lost one chick in their first 5 days since i started doing that. i'd lost a few here and there before that (before getting sfh btw).

i feed a 20% starter mix. I also do something a bit 'off the wall' maybe... reading up on coccidia i learned that most of the time, chicks raised on real dirt don't tend to have problems, as it's introduced into their system gradually, while the mother's antibodies are still active. in this way they build their own immunity to it from the start. So now I have a shallow plastic lasagna-type pan, filled with dirt from outside, grass seeds (orchard grass mix for pastures) planted and sprouted, then i laid a piece of 1/2" hardware cloth over the dirt to keep them from digging in it. i have 3 of these that i rotate as the grass is mowed down, to let it recover. they can still peck the dirt, picking up bits of gravel in the process. around a week old, i've been giving them bits of scratch grains just tossed into the shavings too.

between the greens and grains, I'm seeing overall healthier chicks than i did all last year.

 

[Leahs Mom]

K - I also put dirt down - in the brooder they get clumps of dirt with sod changed out regularly as they scratch through it. If raised in the hen house, the base is dirt from the garden with the wood chips over the top. Been doing that since I started.

 

[Leahs Mom]

For the Boston Marathon.

 

[Spifflove]

1.5 month update.