Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[lawatt]

well, speaking of getting started early -- my SFH pullet who just started laying eggs 2 or 3 weeks ago, is now acting broody. if i set eggs under her, she'll hatch them a week before the winter solstice. how crazy is that?

 

[Bernie56]

I was working in the barn and decided to take some updated photos. Its a lousy day out so, most didn't turn out very well, but here are a few pretty good ones. I was delighted to add 3 dark hens from Raven1 on this thread. Here are a few pics of the new girls.


The two hens were direct from Greenfire, and the pullet was a 2013 hatch from them. I am thrilled to add these to my breeding pens. Also new to my pens are several hens and two roosters hatched (2013) from "Dahlisgrams" eggs.






There is another rooster from this group very similar to this one but with blue instead of black. This group has great size. The last additions were hatched by a broody from my own flock.





I have a another unique rooster from this group whose photo I accidently deleted, but will try a get another on a better day. I will be working with 25 hens and 4 roosters this year and am looking forward to seeing what comes from these pairings! Hopefully my NPIP certification will be complete in the next few weeks. All of the rooster this year will be non crested which will simplify things greatly as all roosters can go with any hen.

 

[FeyRaine]

@Bernier56 Wow what lovely birds. I'm now looking forward to my own tiny flock's spring 2014 to see what sorts of colors/patterns I get...

My own current pullet looks very much like the one in your 1st pic. color pattern & body type, will be interesting to see what yours does w/ your Roo(s), if the black base passes etc.

My fav. of yours are in the 3rd & 4th pictures, they are real eye candy.

I know others have been talking about rate of lay, you have such a big flock so it would be a good benchmark; what are you finding as far as #/egg as an avg.?

Now I can hardly wait for spring...

 

[Bernie56]

Thanks for the compliments! It gets harder to keep track of egg numbers as the flock increases. I have 25 hens, but some are not of laying age yet. I am getting about 8-10 eggs per day at the moment. I am quite happy with those numbers when you take into account molting and the short days. When I had fewer hens, and was better able to keep track of individual hens I noticed a pattern of two days of laying and one day off. An average of probably 5 eggs per week per hen. I did have several go broody this past season, but it seemed to be the same girls repeatedly. I never let them hatch any as I wanted them to lay, so I'm not sure about their mothering abilities. I rarely use broodies but did let one of my EE's have a clutch of SFH eggs this past summer. They were the younger group in the photos. Good luck with your girls this spring!

 

[SunnySkies]

BERNIE!!! When my hens go broody, I WANT SOME EGGS. I have a black rooster I'd like to cross on some other black birds.

Folks, Bernie's hens lay lovely large eggs and are beautiful. I had a few hatch last summer under a broody hen. Gorgeous blue babies.

 

[SunnySkies]

well, speaking of getting started early -- my SFH pullet who just started laying eggs 2 or 3 weeks ago, is now acting broody.  if i set eggs under her, she'll hatch them a week before the winter solstice.  how crazy is that?

That is really wild. No figuring these chickens.

 

[ki4got]

I think these 2 are my favorites... but i'm partial to the 'non-blue' girls... (that being said, nearly all of my girls are blue LOL but my roos i'm keeping won't be - so i'll get blue and black-based chicks)

actually, when I say black or blue based, I don't mean as dark as your girls, just that the blue/black they do have is one or the other... and I correct myself. I have one black-based mille fleur girl, one blue mottled and one blue mille.

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

I love the black ones especiallly the black and white one.

 

[Bernie56]

BERNIE!!! When my hens go broody, I WANT SOME EGGS. I have a black rooster I'd like to cross on some other black birds.

Folks, Bernie's hens lay lovely large eggs and are beautiful. I had a few hatch last summer under a broody hen. Gorgeous blue babies.

Thanks Sunny! I plan on penning the young dark roo (pictured previously) with the 3 new blacks, and my other dark girls. He will have 8 hens, and there should be a concentration of the dark colors....in theory anyway. I have a really unique roo (also from my broody) who is basically red/white, but very different from my other red/white guys. He's closer to being blue than any other roo that I have grown out, with awesome random mottling. I am putting him with the two red hens from Dahlisgrams, who have great size but minimal flowering, and a few other darker girls. Those will be my "project" pens, the rest of the girls (basically my original flock) will be with the large roos from Dahlisgrams. I should have LOTS of eggs! Hoping to have my NPIP complete in the next few weeks, and we'll be all set.

 

[Bernie56]

Ok, I got out and took more pictures of the second roo from my broody. I had sworn off of red/white roos, but this little guy started out so different from my others that I kept him, out of curiosity, to see how he feathered out. Here he is at about a week old. (center) He started out kind of silver like the others , but had dark feathers unlike the others who were mostly white like the one on the right. He did go almost pure white, but colored up at about 3 1/2 months. Here he is at 5 months.



Its hard to tell from the photo, but he has a lot of color mixed in. He has a lot of blue, gold on his head behind the comb, red and black shoulders, black in his tail and gold in his saddle feathers. What I really like is how random the flowering is. Here is a close-up to show some of the random coloring.

I plan to put him with some red hens with minimal mottling, to see if he improves the mottling in the offspring. I would still be wary of using him on light colored hens, due to my previous experience with a mostly white flock.