Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[Bulldogma]

Swedish Flowers are beautiful chickens! I have a rooster and 2 hens I hatched from the incubator! They are friendly and docile birds. I was lucky I even hatched a rooster and two hens. Sometimes you end up with all roosters. But when they start laying I will hatch eggs from them. I will have to post pics of them. They are GORGEOUS birds!!!

Welcome! We always love new folks joining us on the thread!

Well, the Silkie eggs didn't hatch, and I'm not surprised, as the humidity was pretty low. The egg I wondered was a half-SFH hatched, but the chick was well and truly stuck. I woke up early this morning to check, and the shell and membranes were so dried they crumbled in my hand when I picked the egg up to help the chick out. It's doing great...but I'm not sure it's half-SFH. But the comb looks odd for a Cochin. Cute little black thing. I guess I'll see how big it gets as it grows.

I'm sick about the others though. Boo. I should have gone with the notes I made when I set the eggs, not what I calculated last week. I thought they were to come off the turner today when I recalculated. That hen lays odd shaped eggs, which probably doesn't help.

Awww - so sorry about your Silkie eggs! They were your last Alien eggs, right?
That just sucks!

OK... going CRAZY!!
My SFH eggs are the ones I got when Gunnar died. I really want these chicks to be ok.

Anyway... any advice before I leave for the evening?

I really want these chicks to be OK too!!!!!!! This anticipation is killing me. As for advice, I'd say that ki4got is definitely the one to ask for incubating and hatching advice. I can do it, but I'm not very good at it.

SunnySkies,

I had 5 eggs from Gunnar, et al, One was blood ringed by Day 7 and another was a late quitter. Three did hatch.

By the way this was the driest hatch that I had ever run and the most successful. Good luck!!!

Hapless - was it you I gave some eggs that were 10+ days old? Or was that someone else? Certainly not a bad hatch rate if you were the one with the older eggs!

 

[HaplessRunner]

It was me! I received those eggs from you at Gilmanor where we met on May 4. Some of the dates on those eggs went back to April 22. So, needless to say, I am very pleased with the outcome.

 

[pickitfarm]

OK... going CRAZY!!
My SFH eggs are the ones I got when Gunnar died. I really want these chicks to be ok.
They were supposed to hatch on Saturday evening/Sunday morning.
Thursday morning they went into lockdown.
I woke up this morning and not a peep... I had lost all hope, but...
about 11am I checked again and 2 eggs have "tiny" pip holes... noon, a third... now at 2:30 there is a fourth.
BUT... no progress beyond that with any of them.
I have to leave in hr until 10:00 tonight and it's driving me crazy.
Humidity is holding, so I guess there's nothing I can do... but geez... I've never had this happen before and had a hatch drag out like this... And they are SO quiet... I'm used to noise!
Maybe they'll all hatch while I'm gone and be the quietest SFH in history.
Anyway... any advice before I leave for the evening?

We are sitting on 10 SFH eggs and today is 21 1/2 days and nothing....no pips, zips or noise. It is very frustrating. I really want these birds in my flock and it took some time to acquire these for hatching. So if I am correct your eggs should have hatch one to two days ago and you are now seeing pips. So maybe we have some hope left, but not feeling it. I hope your little ones get out okay.

 

[jbarrett]

Hey everyone my birds that are the same age as Leahs Mom are laying good 4 out of 6 not bad!! Incubator is fired up a going!

 

[RedRidge]

Report from home. One chick hatched! Yeah!

 

[KYTinpusher]

I have had some of my SFH hatch on day 22 or 23. They look at me and peep "Good things are worth waiting for!"

 

[Bulldogma]

Report from home. One chick hatched! Yeah!

WOOOOOT!

 

[pickitfarm]

DH said we need to wait a few more days. You are right good things are worth waiting for, but when your first experience of hatching was around 21 days you think that is what will happen again. UGH!

 

[SunnySkies]

Welcome! We always love new folks joining us on the thread!


Awww - so sorry about your Silkie eggs! They were your last Alien eggs, right?
That just sucks!

Yeah, last of the Alien eggs. Boo hoo. But with me messing up going into lockdown and the oddly shaped eggs the one hen in the coop at the time of his death laid (the other was broody) I may have been fighting a losing battle. It's not a total loss of decent Silkies, as it looks like I have a nice juvenile roo that has been raised with the SFH age mates, but I did love that silly rooster. I'm leaving the eggs for another couple of days but the hatched ones come out tonight to go into the brooder.

Something else I've noticed about SFH...I don't have a lot of issues with older ones picking on younger. I added two chicks last week from madamwlf to the brooder, which had three from H and H, which were probably 3-4 weeks old. I'll see if I can add these two....if it wasn't raining so hard, I'd try grafting them to a broody hen (I have 6 right now).

 

[RedRidge]

Another report from home... 2nd SFH has hatched... Another working on it. Looks like we'll get at least a few. Anxious to get home in a few hrs and see what's happening. Yeah!