Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[ki4got]

Quote: nope. the one rule with SFH is, there are no rules they follow... as HaplessRunner said... they're all over the place as far as comb/wattle development is concerned. love my bantam cochins. they can reliably sexed by about 2-3 weeks old. LOL wish the sfh were as easy, tho some roos are just plain obvious. like 'confetti' posted above this one.

 

[CackleJoy]

This one seems to be easy. In general, SFH can fool you for a long time. I have one SFH roo who seemed to be a pullet because there was no significant development in his comb for almost 3+months. Rather belatedly, the comb started growing and he started crowing. I have four SFH chicks that are almost two months old and three definitely appear to be cockerels with just one pullet.

I have two SFH chicks that are one month old. One acts like a cockerel; it is curious, inquisitive, & wants to jump up on everything. The other is content to stay on the floor. Bottom line: With SFH, sometimes the jury is out for a long time before you can be sure of the gender of a given chick.

Well I guess I won't get my hopes up that we have one roo and 11 girls. That would be too good to be true! I did run out to the broody house and take another good look. The combs range in non-existent to tiny bumps to a couple really big ones like pictured. I'm glad to know I should with hold judgement. Was able to identify several getting crests! That makes me happy. I'd like a flock of crested so I could encourage that.
Thank you for your input! Some breeds are quickly identifiable. It's nice to know when working with a slow one. It helps the patience stretch a little further

 

[CackleJoy]

going to try and label these... the group consists of 2 older cockerels (pretty sure) from kytinpusher, 4 from Leigh's eggs (2 red/white, 2 blue mille, 1 of each is crested) and 3 from wildhorseannie (aka Marcia) a penguin and 2 milles... plus one ee mix (with buff cochin), 2 bantam cochins and a bantam blrw (black laced) cockerel.

oldest pullet from Leigh, hatched 9/16

Leigh's by Sorenson - 10/13 hatch

Leigh's by Sorenson in the front (crested), the other 2 (mille left and penguin right) are both from Marcia's eggs. - 10/13 hatch

from Leigh's eggs, crested blue mille, same red/white as 2nd pic - 10/13 hatch

'confetti' from kytinpusher's eggs. cockerel for sure, lovely markings too. hatched 9/16

crested penguin from kytinpusher - thinking cockerel again... same hatch as confetti.

assorted chicks, mostly sfh - partridge cochin pullet in the corner and one of them (font most I think) is a mille fleur bantam cochin cockerel.

assorted chicks, mostly sfh plus a buff cochin ee mix between the penguins.

confetti, pullet of Leigh's and younger sfh plus a bantam blrw cockerel in the middle.

Confetti, Penguin and a pile o' sfh

ETA, the blue things on their wings are wing bands... permanently attached form of ID. worn kind of like an earring but they aren't easily removable. by the time the birds are mature, you won't see the bands at all.

You have a beautiful flock coming on! Ours are a little younger ie not so pretty =) They'll work it out soon!

 

[SunnySkies]

SunnySkies,

What you need are called ground anchors.  They screw into the ground and you attach to your coops with a bolted chains.  I had to do this years ago when I build a school shelter that was blown over by the wind.  A local farmer helped used a tractor to lift it back in place.  I attached three ground anchors and it has never moved in the 50-70 mph winds we get here.  I, too, live on a hill that has a view to the gap to Harpers Ferry and the gap to Point of Rocks.

The anchors look like this.

I had a building with those. Notice I said had. I bought a garage in a box kit last fall to provide an emergency shelter to the horses. Set it up and was very pleased with it for a few weeks. Then... A storm blew in that ripped the first 4 anchors out of the ground and broke the cable ties. Replaced the broken parts, at great expense, and reset the building along with adding a second set of anchors (I bought two extra anchor kits and we added 4 to make a total of 10 ground anchors). No issues for quite a few weeks and I took a breath and thought it might actually work for what we needed it to do... Get us to spring. But.....We had a severe wind storm last winter that actually broke those anchors off IN the ground (they are actually still in the ground in my horse paddock because we can't get them out) and ripped the building through the fence, wrecking the fence on the way through (fence was easily fixed), and sent the building down our hill! The building was ruined, and the warranty was not kept by the manufacturer because of their high wind clause. The kit supplied airline cable and friction nuts to fasten the building to the anchors, and where the anchor itself wasn't ruined, the airline cable was broken. The nuts held, but if I had tied down a plane, the plane would have gone flying with no pilot.

I caught the building and held it down by chucking the load of square bales I had just gotten into it (upside down, where it wasn't quite acting as a sail any longer) until it stopped moving around and then running back to the house to call for help in the middle of a windstorm. Hubby came home from work and took it apart verrryyyy carefully. The bits are still laying out there next to the real barn (which is currently missing half its roof still as hubby hasn't been around to fix it, and it is supposed to rain tomorrow) but kind of mangled, and the cover was ruined. I could use some of it, but some of it was wrecked, cost for replacements ended up being as much as buying a new kit. So we didn't bother and instead had a barn raising and built what we have...which isn't much...in January.

A friend has the exact same building and has had no problems, but I suspect location plays a major factor.

I am bummed about it. I could really use that building now. I'd have my tractor and gardening things in there as well as hay and feed storage and could have my garage back. Sigh.

Headed to HD today to look at those concrete blocks and chains, but hubby needs to help me move the coop to a permanent winter location before I go crazy trying to anchor it down. It's just sitting in the front pasture right now where it landed after we flipped it back onto its feet. Meanwhile, every time I hear the wind blow now, I get worried about those two coops. Which is stupid because we had some fairly significant storms this summer and had no problems at all.

The second coop to be blown over is a heavy duty wooden structure I built this spring ns have had no trouble with until now. I think it just got unlucky and was hit just right by the winds. Funny that was blown over instead of the Chinese made coop I bought in an emergency last year....seriously, that has been the best coop ever. No issues, no predator attacks there. It's just too small for more than a couple birds.

I did finally get the hay restacked. Well. Re-rolled back to where I can cover them again.

I actually still have a kit of anchors in the garage. Saw them yesterday.

Hubby is taking a few days off at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I might make him build a big permanent coop then and then take this one's cover off and store until it is time to do meat birds again.

 

[FeyRaine]

Here is the SFH w/ the toe issues I posted about, this is the first time I could get pictures, the birds is now 4 wks old, gets around fine, but the inside toes on each foot as you can see
are at a sharp 90degree angle pointed towards each other. This really doesn't look like any toe issue I've ever seen on any other chick I've hatched so is this the "there might be a genetic toe issue in the SFH gene pool" sort of toe problem. ie should I not breed this bird...



Here are pics of the 2 SFH if anyone wants to start playing pullet or roo?

The bad toe one is on the left (multi colors) the good toe hatchmate is on the right (med grey back, red/brown head, cream belly)



Again Bad Toe bird

And Good Toe bird



Have I got a future breeder Roo for my current SHF pullet? These both look like pullets to me so far, but the Bad Toe one is acting more roo-ish so I'm confused.

 

[ki4got]

as a general rule, if you don't KNOW why the toes are crooked (ie hatched that way) I personally wouldn't use it. I had one girl that got stepped on - ok I've had many stepped on by the horse, but this girl only had a couple broken toes that healed crooked... that's a known reason, and has nothing to do with possible genetics.

I would say let him/her grow out, assess all other attributes and go from there. if it's your only roo, for example, see what you get.

personally I've got more than enough roos, so i'm more likely to cull a crooked toe roo than to take a chance.

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

I think the toes look odd and crooked both. Unless its just the picture they look discolored.

 

[TxFlowers]

On the crooked toes, I never really had a problem with it until a couple of months ago when I hatched 5 SF eggs I got from someone else. At hatch, 4 of the 5 had curled toes. It was very odd since I had used this particular GQF incubator before and since and have not had any hatches like that. Humidity in that hatch and during it's incubation was same as it was for other hatches. I proceeded to splint the feet on these babies. All but one has perfect toes now. One still is curled on one foot but I don't think I was as aggressive as I should have been in the splinting. Question is why were these chicks like this. Since other hatches have all had great feet with the same hatching and incubating conditions, I don't think it was on my end. The other reason I have read about aside from genetics and hatching/incubating conditions is nutrition of the hens, something about a lack of B vitamins. Read that here on BYC somewhere. Since all the chicks but one had their toes correct with my help, I don't think it was genetic. I tend to question the vitamin issue. Had I not splinted the toes, these chicks likely would have horribly curled feet but since they corrected, I don't think they were meant to be that way. I also supplemented the chicks with B vitamins.

I received some SF day old chicks a couple of months ago. At arrival all chicks appeared to have perfect feet but a few wks later I noticed two had crooked toes. One chick had both outside toes curl backwards to make a hard "U". The other had this on only one foot. These chicks were raised on shavings not wire so I know it wasn't the surface they were reared on. Also since it developed as they grew I am pretty sure their problem is genetic. It's also on the same toes on both birds which again suggests genetic. These birds will be culled from any breeding.

 

[Diamantine]

Hello everyone! I am a first time SFH owner who thought she had her 3.5 month old birds sexed, but now I'm second guessing myself immensely! I stopped assessing them from day to day and suddenly noticed that 2 of my 4 assumed cockerels were drastically different looking. Oops! Now I need some help confirming my assumptions whether it be my first guesses or the new ones

2 crested SFH, 3.5 months

Gray crested

Orange crested

2 SFH, obviously cockerels, 3.5 months old

Based on comb, waddle, hackle and saddle feathers, wouldn't the 2 crested be pullets? Still unable to make up my torn little mind

 

[Goose and Fig]

you're right- crested ones are girls. nice variety there!