Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[beckyb1971]

how does ours look? any advice

 

[ki4got]

I've got the brinsea eco 20. So now I've got people recommending low humidity and a friend that hatches says 50% then 80 on day 18. ??

for hatching I stay between 55 and 65 typically. it goes up as chicks start hatching naturally, as they dry off. if the hatching humidity is too high the chicks have a harder time learning to breathe,

how does ours look? any advice

LOL they look cold. I like the blue girl.

 

[TxFlowers]

Ok so run no water in the chanels until day 18 then get it up to 70%? Shall I blot out the water in the channel tonite yet? I'd just filled one up and it's about 40%.

Like Karen, I do 55 to 65% at hatch time. I don't like to see it so high in humidity that water is dripping off everything. That is hardly how it happens when chicks hatch naturally under a hen. Like Karen mentioned, it likely makes it harder for them to breathe.

This is what I personally do. Not saying it's THE only way but works for me. Like I said I don't add water during incubation UNLESS the humidity is really low. I like 20 to 25% but at times it can go lower. Then I add a small amount just to keep the eggs from drying out too fast. Generally an incubator full of eggs won't be too dry as the eggs themselves will keep the humidity up some but if you have just a few eggs in there, the humidity can get pretty low or if you are just having some really dry weather that too can influence incubator humidity. Then at hatching I don't increase humidity until I can see the chicks beaks in position to start to pip when I candle or sometimes until I see the first little break in the shell. Of course this means you have to check eggs often but there is no need for the extra humidity until the chicks actually start to pip. In the mean time I'm still drying down the eggs so I wait to increase humidity as long as I can. If I'm not checking the eggs often, I will go ahead and add water the day before they are due. If you are concerned that some may begin to hatch before you get humidity up, go ahead and increase the humidity a couple of days before due date. It won't hurt, it's just that they don't actually need the humidity until they begin to hatch.

 

[Bulldogma]

I've got the brinsea eco 20.

I've heard really good things about that incubator.

 

[Bulldogma]

how does ours look? any advice

A very nice looking group so far!

 

[johnlogan]

I have hatched eggs from different ebay sellers, in one I hatched a chick with 5 toes and in the other a feathered leg chick. I wonder if early in the history of SFs in America a breeder sold unpure eggs to people and since have been dispersed all over the country?

 

[beckyb1971]

Thank you, they are new to us an was just wondering how they looked. we havent seen to many of them to tell.

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

I've heard really good things about that incubator.

I have 2 of them and have been very happy with how they work. I like mine so much that over the weekend I disassembled the whole upper heating/fan unit of one, vacuumed it out, washed the removable parts, and then filled the reassembled unit with 21 SFH eggs

My daughter and I were out tending to the chickens on Saturday and she climbed the chicken ladder up into the coop. She found an egg (surprise, surprise!) and asked if we could incubate it. We marked it with an "E" in purple pencil since it's her egg and she got to load it into the incubator. She asked this morning if she could see the chick inside of it and I told her it was a little early yet for that.

How did my fellow Virginians fare in the wintry mix that passed through? We got maybe in inch or so of ice that was topped with snow. It wasn't much, but apparently the wind blew it around enough to trip the ground fault current for our outdoor socket and the heat lamp went out in the chicken coop! I went out this morning expecting the worst for my recent hatch when I saw no red glow coming from the coop. We lucked out because either it hadn't been out long or the chicks somehow managed to nestle deeply enough into the bedding to make it through the night intact. All 7 popped up cheeping when I got the light back on. Whew! I've taken some pictures of the mysterious striped chick that hatched and I was hoping to take a few more as it developed so I can figure out what it is. Since they all made it through the night, the observation can continue. It is starting to get some little tufts on its head like part of a crest.

I did take the advice from this thread and separate out the possible mothers by moving the legbars and the EEs. All three EEs laid on Saturday and they all put out blue/blue-green eggs. So no EE genes are mixed into mystery chick since it hatched from a brown egg. The legbars I am not sure about because they freaked out about being moved and I've yet to get 4 eggs on a single day to be sure everyone's laying blue. I did get 3 yesterday, and all three were blue. One holdout remains! I've never had a group react so poorly to being moved. They've even been pulling out each other's feathers. With the new batch of eggs in the incubator I can run a new test because if more striped chicks hatch, I can be assured they're full SFH. I wrote on my calendar that I put together my SFH pens on the 13th of January so all eggs should be nothing but SFH at this point as there have been no "security breaches" in the separation. The latches for the pens are up at adult height so no interference or accidental introductions could have been done by my daughter and my husband never fiddles with the chicken affairs.

 

[ki4got]

I have hatched eggs from different ebay sellers, in one I hatched a chick with 5 toes and in the other a feathered leg chick. I wonder if early in the history of SFs in America a breeder sold unpure eggs to people and since have been dispersed all over the country?

either that or the same ebay seller with different names? I've seen that a bunch. one gets a bad rep so they change names and go on... in general I haven't had good experiences with ebay sellers (for eggs). but it sounds like someone crossed in a silkie somewhere. those 5 toes and feathered legs tho are dominant traits, so the parent bird would have to show that for it to be passed along... so either the breeders are lying or they have no clue.

 

[TxFlowers]

I have hatched eggs from different ebay sellers, in one I hatched a chick with 5 toes and in the other a feathered leg chick. I wonder if early in the history of SFs in America a breeder sold unpure eggs to people and since have been dispersed all over the country?

Recently I sent a msg to a seller on Ebay that had listed SFH eggs. They had pictures of two roosters with their flock. All looked typical SFH but one rooster was very strange looking. I told them that I doubted what they had was a pure SFH. They didn't get their birds directly from GFF. I assume they have been hatching their own SFH chicks from this roo and likely have sold some eggs here and there through ebay. If this roo wasn't pure SFH then apparently were unaware of it and in the mean time, he's being used for breeding. They have a new Ebay auction now that no longer shows that rooster in their group so maybe they decided not to use him. From time to time pictures are posted on this thread asking if their "SFH" is really a pure SFH. Often times the consensus is that what they have is not. Many people just don't know and not everyone knows of this website and thread for information and advice from others. No telling how many SF flocks are of mixed blood. Fear of this caused me to get most of my birds directly from GFF. Not that doing this absolutely guarantees purity but it's certainly better choice than just buying from anyone off ebay that didn't get their stock directly from GFF or that doesn't take care to make sure "accidents" don't happen. You just need to be careful who you buy from. I think there are more out there than we know of with mixed blood SFHs that are selling eggs/birds. JMHO