Swedish Flower Hens

[Anacletus]

I have a question about one of my 12 week old Swedish Flower Hens. I received two males and four females as can be seen in the pictures. However, one of my cockerels has a feather crest that does not seem to fit with the breed. Any thoughts?

 

[ve]

They have crests too. Flower hens are more landrace than standardized breed. You also can see the variation in color of your birds.

 

[Perris]

all my Swedish Flowers are crested - dom roo in my avatar for example. As ve already said, SFH can be crested or uncrested.

The gene for it is autosomal incomplete dominant, which means not sex-linked, will show a small crest if there's one allele and a large crest if there's two. Two small crested parents can produce an uncrested offspring if they both pass on the uncrested allele they each possess, and a large crested offspring if they both pass on the crested allele. The long and the short is, if crest shows on one of your birds, it's likely to be retained within your flock if you allow the birds to breed. You can ignore scare stories that crests involve domed skulls and holes in them; that has been known to happen with other highly inbred crested breeds (Polish, Houdan if memory serves correct) but not with SFH, which evolved and were not created by breeders (that's also why there's so much variation).

Personally I think your roo looks gorgeous, and I'd be delighted with my luck receiving him.

 

[Anacletus]

Thank you the reply and information; all good to know as a newbie to owning a flock. I do plan to incubate a few every year so we'll see what happens. More to follow. Again, thanks.

 

[Buggerboy]

all my Swedish Flowers are crested - dom roo in my avatar for example. As ve already said, SFH can be crested or uncrested.

The gene for it is autosomal incomplete dominant, which means not sex-linked, will show a small crest if there's one allele and a large crest if there's two. Two small crested parents can produce an uncrested offspring if they both pass on the uncrested allele they each possess, and a large crested offspring if they both pass on the crested allele. The long and the short is, if crest shows on one of your birds, it's likely to be retained within your flock if you allow the birds to breed. You can ignore scare stories that crests involve domed skulls and holes in them; that has been known to happen with other highly inbred crested breeds (Polish, Houdan if memory serves correct) but not with SFH, which evolved and were not created by breeders (that's also why there's so much variation).

Personally I think your roo looks gorgeous, and I'd be delighted with my luck receiving him.

looking to buy sfhs in tenn