Tina:

Greetings! I do keep Swedish Flower Hens. I keep them for brooding (peahen eggs and Ameraucana bantam eggs) and eye candy when I let them free range. I’ve started with just a few Swedish Flower Hen eggs that I hatched last year. I have both crested and non-crested. My original plan was to use a flock mating method where I’d have the best few cocks running with a nice selection of hens. After coming up with a few defects (split wings and wry tails) and learning things here at the Breeders Academy, I’m being more deliberate about my breeding plan for them. I’m now looking at selecting the no-defect offspring of good type from this year along with some color selection to build three clans. I’ve ended up with a lot of offspring that are splash, self blue, and white which is not what I like in Swedish Flower Hens and I’m going to be selecting the more vibrantly colored and marked chickens.

My goal is to end up with 3 clans consisting of 2 cocks/cockerels and 4 hens from the birds I have. I’ve seen where breeders have shared that they started a clan system with trios or even pairs. Most breeders use three clans, but I’ve seen that you can go almost indefinitely with 5 clans.The information is here on the Breeders Academy regarding clans, so I will not repeat that information here.

Start Where You Are With What You Have: A Guide to Poultry Breeding, by Ralph H. Sturgeon has a nice section on the topic of Clan breeding systems.

Technically, if you have just a pair or trio, one can establish clans from them and their offspring. I’ve basically done that with a trio of white Ameraucana bantams. Cock with his best daughters, Hen 1 with her best son, and Hen 2 with best son. I’m running an improvement line also, but the white Ameraucana bantams are so few in numbers in the United States that I felt like I had to have a sustainable population that was slowly improving at the same time that I was doing an improvement program. In all likelihood, The improvement line will eventually replace its originating clan or become another clan or be divided into 3 new clans.

I hope my response helps some. I understand the struggle between the landrace philosophy and breed improvement. I strongly believe that defects should not be tolerated due to a “hands off” landrace philosophy.

Michael