The Svart Hona (Swedish Black Hen) Thread!

[Meglin1990]

Hi I’m just wondering how long it takes for these guys to hatch in an incubator. Are they about the same as other chicks at 21 days or do they take a little bit longer?

 

[ronott1]

I’ve heard some people say they’ve taken a couple extra days. Thank you for your response

It would depend on if the eggs were shipped and how long they were stored before incubating.

Then there is the incubation factor. If eggs are consistently taking longer than normal to hatch, the temp in the incubator should go up half of a degree. Too low of incubation temps will lower hatch rates too.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

I realize this thread hasn't had any activity in over a year now, but I'm hoping someone familiar with the Svarthöna breed will chime in. I recently had a hawk attack my free ranging Svarthöna rooster and thankfully he wasn't killed. The next day the hawk came back and was on the ground beside the coop trying to figure out how to get to my Svarthöna hen. Of course she was freaking out and in the fear I guess she forgot that she could go into the coop. I believe she rammed herself into the welded wire (same size a the regularly used hardware cloth) multiple times during her freak out. She ended up with a cut on the back of her comb, and two places of damage on her beak. Everything is healing up well, but I've noticed that her beak is white where she had damage. Before this, she was a good representation of the breed, in my opinion. So I'm just curious if anyone has seen this on a beak and knows if these places will stay white or will they eventually turn black again. Of course it's no big deal either way and time will tell, but I figured I'd ask. We are extremely lucky that we didn't lose these birds or any others to the hawk. I thought it was so odd that the hawk went after my pair separately. They aren't kept together so it's just like the hawk thought they looked the tastiest out of all of my birds. I suspect my rooster was attacked because out of the other roosters that are in the same areas as Zeon (the SH cock), they were probably too big. Zeon is the smallest. Thank you for your time and any input you can share

 

[Aldergirl]

How big is he? There’s a few different breeds he could be crossed him, or he could be a mix of mixes. While I would classify his leakage as “silver” he does appear to be split for both the silver and gold gene, giving him that off-white sort of leakage.

He's definitely on the small size. He's a lot smaller than our Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire Red, and Black Sex-Link Hens. He might be about the same size as our (non-bantam) Ameraucana/Easter Egger hen. We didn't weigh him, and we've got him quarantined away from our other chickens so I don't have good comparisons to go on, but he's less than half the size of a Rhode Island Red Rooster.