Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[lawatt]

OOOh Astrid is very pretty, I Iike her ginger coloring, more orange than tan. Mr Isbar is nice too, 1st pic I've seen of that breed. Should be a pretty cross, although surely someone near to you could help you get Astrid a proper SFH boyfriend for future chicks... right ya'll?? ...can't let a pretty SFH gal be just a "wall flower" now can we ;>

thanks -- my first rooster was actually an SFH, but i didn't end up keeping him -- i don't have space for more than three breeds at once, and SFHs, along with cream legbars, were not among my final choices to focus on with breeding -- so i'm just an admirer for now. but who knows, that may change in the future! and i'm happy to have my one girl, as she IS utterly beautiful.

 

[redhen689]

Hatch news, folks! All 4 of the SFH hatched without issue and are now snuggled up in the brooder with the three Wheaten Marans chicks that hatched at the same time. Looks like I've got 2 splash, 1 black mille fleur-type, and 1 I am not exactly sure of the pattern. It will be fun to see how they turn out when real feathers come in. I bought 2 rabbit hutches, one double and one single, to use as chick brooders this year but with it being about 15 degrees outside, the recent chicks are keeping warm in the pantry for now. No way am I turning them into peepsicles!

Oh, I just thought to add: Everything hatched in the morning of day 22. Lots had pipped on day 21 but no one was out until I got up Sunday morning. The incubator seemed stable temperature-wise and the air in our house is so dry right now that I did keep water in the incubator the whole time. As the humidity goes up later in the spring (and face it, that's inevitable in Virginia) I might try a dry hatch but so far so good with the regular means.

Congrats on your hatch!
I wanted to wait until April to hatch eggs, but my husband said the crowing roosters were driving him "insane" and if I didn't get rid of them, he would.
I'm on day 21. I just did a quick check and it appears that all have pipped internally, and the one externally. It looks like mine will hatch on day 22. When I have hatched eggs in the past I have had most hatch on day 20-21, so these are late for me.
The outside temperatures have been down in the single digits here at night, so this chicks won't be going out for a long time. I was hoping to have a broody hen to raise them, but my SFH don't seem to have the broody instinct.

 

[Bulldogma]

Anybody have 12-18 SFH eggs they can ship asap from a healthy flock?

LOL - are you the one that emailed me today? (shabbychicken...)
PM me. My girls are laying like crazy right now.

 

[dbarjacres]

Lol yep that's me talking to you via email

 

[Kyzmette]

At what age is it possible to tell gender? Around 16 weeks, maybe? Or do we just wait for the first crow?

 

[Bulldogma]

At what age is it possible to tell gender? Around 16 weeks, maybe? Or do we just wait for the first crow?

You should be able to tell pretty well at 16 weeks... and often the boys will be pretty obvious before then.

 

[Gonetothebirds]

At what age is it possible to tell gender? Around 16 weeks, maybe? Or do we just wait for the first crow?

Mine where pretty clear at 8-10 weeks. Talking about uncreated

 

[SunnySkies]

I'm thinking about setting 18-20 SFH eggs tomorrow, eggs I've collected over the last week that we haven't eaten. I did the NYD hatch a long and then decided maybe I shouldn't set any more until it's less likely to storm...good thing, as we have lost power several times for a long enough period it would kill the embryos. And I don't really want chicks in the house, but with any luck, after they hatch, they will only need to stay in for a few weeks and then I can kick them to the garage, by which time it will hopefully be warmer than it is out there right now, to grow up before putting in the coop.

 

[redhen689]

2 more SFH have entered the world overnight. 2 are zipping, 3 more... we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

Hooray, redhen!

I am contemplating setting more eggs for the Easter hatchalong. I've divided up some of my other breeds so that the eggs should be fertilized by the pairings I want. I'd really like to get a good group of pasture chicks to work over the enclosure where we winter-fed our cow and donkey. We fed a lot of hay and with the pasture only being about 3/4 of an acre, there's a lot of manure to be turned over. I figure it will help with potential parasite load to have the chickens clear things up for a few months while the grass regrows. Justification enough to hatch more chicks, right?