Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[TherryChicken]

Anone have chicks for sale? I ivein del valle tx.. would like to buy 12. If so please message me! Thank you!

 

[TxFlowers]

I have a question about ear lobe color in SFHs. I have a young roo with totally white lobes while every other roo and pullet I have has red. I know there is no standard for the breed but since this is the first SF with white lobes I have seen, I am wondering if white lobes are more common than I realize or if he is unusual. I like him well enough to consider keeping him but wondering about the lobe color. Thanks for any comments!

 

[Bernie56]

I have a question about ear lobe color in SFHs. I have a young roo with totally white lobes while every other roo and pullet I have has red. I know there is no standard for the breed but since this is the first SF with white lobes I have seen, I am wondering if white lobes are more common than I realize or if he is unusual. I like him well enough to consider keeping him but wondering about the lobe color. Thanks for any comments!

I have had both. Most of my roos have been mostly red with just a hint of the white (almost an iridescent look), but a few have been mostly white. Some of my hens have whitish as well.

 

[ki4got]

ear lobe color is an indicator of egg color... red will lay more brown eggs, white will typically have more white eggs, while white washed will be lightly tinted... there is a wide range of egg color, but IMO I'm aiming more for the red, with maybe a slight white wash.

 

[AmLambson]

I had my first and only SFH chick hatch last night. Only 2 developed from the 6 I had shipped to me and only one hatched. It looked like the other died around lockdown. It had fluffy but the yolk was not absorbed. So sad! So I'm going to order some more. Do you find shipped eggs are harder to hatch or is it harder for this breed? I've heard both.

 

[SunnySkies]

have you guys noticed aggression with your roosters? 

I've had some pretty terrible ones. My chicks are all raised exactly the same. In fact, I have three absolutely delightful mixed breed boys in their second years that were raised alongside three SFH guys. The three SFH were aw-ful. Highly, highly aggressive. I worked hard to retrain them, and they just got sneaky. The last one died after attacking my husband. The second died after thrashing my little two year old son. The first culled himself when he decided he was sleeping outside and something got him.

NONE of my other roosters have been aggressive, period, even the ones babied by my kids. At one point, I had 17 roosters here. Only those three were aggressive.

I think the breed can have a propensity. It is a landrace breed, and the roosters more likely to kick some tail and ask questions later would be the ones more likely to survive predators....but they are the ones most likely to end up in the stewpot for attacking people, so that does balance out perhaps.

Right now, I have four quite lovely and kind boys. One does make me go hmm once in a while, but he always backs down and has only ever challenged me, nobody else and has never looked at the kids. One is underfoot, almost like a hen, but is very well mannered. They will fight with one of the other roosters once in a while but are generally very good free ranging. But if any show any outright aggression at all now, I won't hesitate to butcher them, now that I have my flock going, and I'll cull their sons too.

They are so good at that free ranging that I had to chase them home yesterday from the neighbors. I was so.mad. They were locked in today as a result.

My results from hatching shipped eggs has been beyond awful. I've had probably 10 dozen SFH eggs shipped to me from all over the US and to another BYCer. We got, between the two of us, a total of 6 chicks to hatch over the course of a year, way worse than other breeds I have hatched, and far, far worse than local eggs. Personally, I would suggest starting with chicks myself, after having wasted so much money on hatching eggs...I paid for at least a dozen chicks with all the hatching eggs that died at lockdown.

Pretty birds you guys have posted!

 

[ki4got]

I had my first and only SFH chick hatch last night. Only 2 developed from the 6 I had shipped to me and only one hatched. It looked like the other died around lockdown. It had fluffy but the yolk was not absorbed. So sad! So I'm going to order some more. Do you find shipped eggs are harder to hatch or is it harder for this breed? I've heard both.

shipped eggs of any breed are a gamble... it all depends on how the usps treats the package while it's in their hands.

 

[TxFlowers]

ear lobe color is an indicator of egg color... red will lay more brown eggs, white will typically have more white eggs, while white washed will be lightly tinted... there is a wide range of egg color, but IMO I'm aiming more for the red, with maybe a slight white wash.

Thanks for the responses. I know that a specific lobe color is associated with various breeds and each breed lays a typical color based on that lobe color but SF can have either red or white lobes. Has anyone noticed that SF hens with white lobes lay the whiter eggs?

 

[TxFlowers]

shipped eggs of any breed are a gamble... it all depends on how the usps treats the package while it's in their hands.

I have 6 SF eggs due on Wed that were from a batch of 10 shipped to me. Of those ten, 8 started to develop but I lost two in the first few days. These eggs were shipped in foam and seemed to make the trip reasonably well. Same person shipped me 7 more eggs which I got beginning of this last week. These were shipped in bubble wrap and newspaper. None of those 7 even started. Those eggs had significant damage. One air cell was totally on the side and won't budge and another egg had it's air cell ruptured into many tiny bubbles. Air cells on rest of eggs were detached and moved around. With such a great difference in the outcome of eggs from same source, I would definitely say that it has more to do with what happens to them in shipping then anything else.

 

[AmLambson]

I have 6+ shipping in the morning to me. I'm hoping for better results this time but all you can do is hope and keep trying I guess.