Swedish Flower Hen Thread

[Peep-Chicken]

Lucky you to have all those little cuties!! You'll love the SFH. Not only are they beautiful and unique to each other, but are friendly, too. They lay a large tan egg starting at about 24 weeks. Welcome!!!

I wish my SFH knew that. She is around 30 weeks and I bet she will hold off on eggs till spring. *sigh*

 

[OHfarmerswife]

OK, so I just got 14 of these cute little chicks this morning. It was kinda an impulse buy. Hahaha

I know nothing about the SFH, so I am starting this thread at the beginning and reading it all the way through. This is gonna take a while. Pleased to meet all of you SFH people. I'm sure I will have a ton of questions.

Hi from Ohio. You are going to love the SFH!!!!!

 

[Melabella]

Okay, so photos of the beautiful boys! These are the 5 guys who are free to a good home and who will, sadly, otherwise end up in the freezer in about a month. They have great personalities, and at the moment all of them are still getting along really well. I am also impressed that there have been no alpha rooster battles with my older roosters, either; these guys are smart and stay out of the way of the big guys. They also make a chicken carpet at the base of our front door that we are greeted with when we open it, and they abandon what they're doing to run up to us in hopes of food any time we step outside!

Hi THeelChickinKY!


Just wondering if you have any new pictures of that gorgeous boy in the back, the black roo. I'd love to see how he developed, and how he's doing?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

MB

 

[THeelChickinKY]

Hi, Melabella! Unfortunately, we had to find a new home for him. We ended up, over a matter of a few weeks last winter, all of a sudden losing almost a chicken a day to predation. We had to lock everyone up to keep them safe and we already had 3 roosters in the established flock, and in confinement rather than their usual free range, there was no way we could keep new cockerels in there with them. We were luckily able to find a home for him and one other boy - we still have 2 hens from that hatch, but 5 boys and 4 girls got taken. Terrible! Hoping this winter is better! Now, how about that gorgeous Nero?

 

[cupofJoelene]

Our first SFH layer with her little bitty first egg.

 

[Lamancha]

Our first SFH layer with her little bitty first egg.

Congratulations! How old is she?

 

[Alpine Chicken]

Hi Peep-Chicken.

Here they are

Lovely chicks, looks like you´ll have a lot of variety in your flock. Congratulations!
Here are my latest little ones. Probably the last ones until Spring, because my girls have stopped laying for now. Sorry about the poor quality, I´ll never earn my keep through photography:

 

[Alpine Chicken]

Hi, Melabella! Unfortunately, we had to find a new home for him. We ended up, over a matter of a few weeks last winter, all of a sudden losing almost a chicken a day to predation. We had to lock everyone up to keep them safe and we already had 3 roosters in the established flock, and in confinement rather than their usual free range, there was no way we could keep new cockerels in there with them. We were luckily able to find a home for him and one other boy - we still have 2 hens from that hatch, but 5 boys and 4 girls got taken. Terrible! Hoping this winter is better! Now, how about that gorgeous Nero?

Yes, please give us an update on Nero and any pretty sons or daughters he might have...

 

[Melabella]

Hi, Melabella! Unfortunately, we had to find a new home for him. We ended up, over a matter of a few weeks last winter, all of a sudden losing almost a chicken a day to predation. We had to lock everyone up to keep them safe and we already had 3 roosters in the established flock, and in confinement rather than their usual free range, there was no way we could keep new cockerels in there with them. We were luckily able to find a home for him and one other boy - we still have 2 hens from that hatch, but 5 boys and 4 girls got taken. Terrible! Hoping this winter is better! Now, how about that gorgeous Nero?

Yes, please give us an update on Nero and any pretty sons or daughters he might have...

Hi Alpine, and THeel,

Thanks for the interest in Nero! It's been a long year of hatching and trying to build up two, hopefully three solid breeding flocks. If it was just a matter of hatching and growing them out, and using them all it would be easy. Trying to stay within the guidelines of the gene bank, and my own interpretation of what is a solid breeding candidate is challenging! Nero truly hasn't had a nice flock of girls yet, but this winter he is being set up with all new unrelated girls, and hopefully I will get to see what he really can do.. I do have 6 wonderful black based girls that are to die for that he has sired. Lovely flowering on them. He lost his comb points to frostbite getting stuck outside in an ice storm when I was away all day, and he stayed out looking for a loner hen who had strayed. He was the only one of the flock that got frostbite. He is still handsome as heck tho, even if he looks like he's been scalped! I am going to post some pictures from my IPad after this post. I also have another promising young cockerel from GFF latest import that I will be using for diversity. I have a third cockerel too, but not sure he will be making the cut. I have my last hatch in the incubator due to hatch Dec. 14th, and then I am locking the incubators away until spring!

Alpine, loving the look of those chicks. Please post as they grow, I love to see how they will feather out. THeel.. so sorry to hear about the predator issues. I so hate losing them that way. I lost 6 beautiful girls this summer who had just come to Point of Lay due to me forgetting to close the coop door. I still beat myself up over that one!

Ok, going to post the pictures, and Happy Holidays to all! Hope you have a peaceful, loving time with your families, and friends.

MB

 

[UrbanFarmOC]

Our first SFH layer with her little bitty first egg.

Congrats!