Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[Bulldogma]

Elinor's egg hatched naturally. I had to intervene and help the two chicks out of the shell of Ginger's eggs. All three are dark chicks and doing fine! It does not look like Astrid's egg will hatch but I am happy to get three Gunnar descendants. I will post pictures later.

Bulldogma,

After checking the hatching and eggs, I found that i made a mistake. Eilnor's egg has not hatched but it was indeed Astrid's egg that hatched naturally. All three hatched chicks are up, alert, & active.

Astrid's Chick:




Ginger's chicks:





The whole gang:

Congrats on the chicks! Keep us updated as they grow!

I just picked up three blacks from there, and two I suspect will not stay black. The feathers on the wings seem to be coming in a dark rusty color. The chicks cme out black -- I have had now a total of five black SFH chicks -- but so far, no black as they grow.

I killed my oldest SFH roo today. My littlest son was walking from the front yard to the back yard. Husband was occupied in the driveway, between front and back. I was near the barn. Older sons running around. Roo jumped the kid. That fast. With people around. My child is very, very lucky. He has a black eye and multiple scratches all over him. It only took a second. I waited until the roo went into bed, took him off the roost, and that was that. I have so many roos I am not risking putting up with a nasty roo.

I am discouraged though. None of my Cochin roos -- I have 5 of them -- have ever threatened a human, even with the babies in the coop and us messing with the hens. None of my backyard mixes (we have had ten, slaughtered 7, currently have 2) have ever threatened someone, even with crazy kids bothering them all the time. My EE roo is as polite as can be. But 2/3 of the SFH I have grown to adulthood have been ugly mean. They were all brothers I hatched from eggs from a breeder in FL that I bought off eBay. Waiting to see how the new groups go, which consist of GF stock and 2 birds hatched from KYTinpusher's eggs, and counting my blessings that I had no hens and thus have no descendants of those roosters. But more mean SFH might make me rethink this whole breed

However, we played more with the first few and maybe that made them worse than they should have been.

Sorry about your roo! The ones that get handled a lot as chicks grow up to be unafraid of humans. That can be an issue. We also have to remember that the rooster's job is to protect the flock from any perceived threats, and kids can seem threatening to roosters. The running, screaming, swinging things about... I am constantly reminding my daughter (ASD) NOT to chase the chickens and be wild around the roosters.

If a rooster starts flogging people when they haven't had that kind of craziness around them, yeah - I would cull. I won't usually cull a good roo that has been abused by my daughter prior to becoming aggressive. Just my personal choice.

 

[pickitfarm]

We are hatching our first SFH. They are scheduled to hatch around June 9 along with Blue Splash Ameraucanas. I am so excited but a little scared after reading about the aggression experienced by some of the SF roos.

. We only have one full grown Barred Rock Roo - Colonel, who is huge and intimidating looking but nice as anything. We are not allowing him to breed with the ladies right now but every day he gets out when we feed him, he walks over to the ladies does his inspections and than my husband tells him to get back into his pen and he goes right back like gentleman that he is. We have several cockerels coming up - Marans and Welsummers. We will only keep one of each for breeding. The rest will be sold off soon. Our intent is to keep a coop for each breed and build bachelor pads for the boys so they can take visitors when we need them to.

 

[Ana Tidae]

ChickNmama- look in the background here- they are Cascade Hops. Looks just like the vines in one of your pics:

 

[ChickNmamma]

ChickNmama- look in the background here- they are Cascade Hops. Looks just like the vines in one of your pics:

Ah, thank you for the picture. No, mine are grapes. I bought a house with grape vines everywhere or so it seems. Originally built by an Italian family who liked to make their own jelly, etc... I have 2 concord(?) and one white grapevines here The roots are huge and gnarled, I had to seriously trim them back the first year - one was up a 100'+ tall cedar that died - those were the white grapes (wine ones I think) and are very sour

Very pretty crested boy. If i could get one like that in blue..

 

[ChickNmamma]

We are hatching our first SFH. They are scheduled to hatch around June 9 along with Blue Splash Ameraucanas. I am so excited but a little scared after reading about the aggression experienced by some of the SF roos.

. We only have one full grown Barred Rock Roo - Colonel, who is huge and intimidating looking but nice as anything. We are not allowing him to breed with the ladies right now but every day he gets out when we feed him, he walks over to the ladies does his inspections and than my husband tells him to get back into his pen and he goes right back like gentleman that he is. We have several cockerels coming up - Marans and Welsummers. We will only keep one of each for breeding. The rest will be sold off soon. Our intent is to keep a coop for each breed and build bachelor pads for the boys so they can take visitors when we need them to.

Good luck with the hatch. I wouldn't worry so much about the aggression of the rooster if you keep them respectful of you. It sounds like you know how to keep them respectful from the description of your job with the Barred Rock.

Also, I have been reading many, many threads on breeding. All breeders say to keep 3 roosters per breed, because of Murphy's Law. If you NEED a roo and you only have one.. it will die. If you have two - one will die and then you will have one again. Three seems to be the magic number.

 

[pickitfarm]

Thank you for the advice. I will keep that in mind with my different breeds. Up to 5 now and if I get SFH and Ameraucanas it will 7. I keep hearing about chicken math....it must be working it magic on us. TeeHee

 

[ChickNmamma]

Thank you for the advice. I will keep that in mind with my different breeds. Up to 5 now and if I get SFH and Ameraucanas it will 7. I keep hearing about chicken math....it must be working it magic on us. TeeHee

I posted on another thread my understanding of how to count via chicken math, maybe it will help your numbers:

Only adult laying hens and three roosters per breed are counted. Chicks are not counted, pullets are not counted, extra roosters of any age are not counted, hatching eggs are not counted (never count your eggs before they hatch)... When you get hatching eggs shipped only half will hatch - and half of those will be roosters, so plan on that when getting eggs (i.e. if you want 10 hens get 40 eggs). The bigger the incubator, the easier it is to fill it up. The smaller incubators are always too small....

 

[Bernie56]

my older trio (was quad but the friendliest of them was stepped on by the horse, shattering his leg) is from Kimberly too, but I got them as juveniles when she passed thru. so far, he's been sweetness itself. then again he's also free ranging with a bunch of other roos who put him in his place regularly. so hopefully he won't get a bad attitude. if he does, i've got plenty of other roos from Gunnar's line.

I had four roos from Kimberly. They were all beautiful. I culled 1 for a side sprig, and now the non crested one has gotten very aggressive. I understand a little tough guy attitude every now and then, but when they try to flog you every time you enter then pen I'm not ok with it. The other two brothers are still very easy going. They were all raised together and have all been handled the same way. I think some are just more aggressive.

 

[redhen689]

Redhen, I assume you went to h&h?

Yes, they had eggs posted on ebay.
I'm a little nuts and was already trying to candle them at 24 hours. I swear I saw a red dot on one of the yolks. lol.

 

[jmarie]

so here is my SFH at 3 weeks..hoping she is a pullet

My husband calls her the white witch because she beats up on the GLW that is with her.