Details

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A landrace originating in Sweden, the Svart Hona or Svarthona shares the fibromelanistic trait of its famous ancestor, Ayam Cemani – they are almost completely black, inside and out. Many believe that the melanin in their meat has extra health benefits. Also called Swedish Black Hens, these birds are larger, more cold-hardy, and FAR more rare than AC. Their eggs are small-med, but they lay extremely well and have excellent fertility.

Our line came from a private breeder who started 10 years ago with genetics from both Greenfire and Ewe Crazy, the only known importers. Ewe Crazy used a GFF rooster for quite a while, so GFF is pretty much unavoidable.

People often try to compare Svarts to Ayam Cemani and forget that they’re a landrace created by natural selection, NOT a manmade breed like AC. That’s why the written SOP allows for variations like mulberry wattles and flopped combs as long as vision isn’t obscured. For Ayam Cemani, those would be hard culls. While missing fibro genes is definitely something to watch out for, it is not a massive concern with Svarts because they are SO rare and the org monitoring them just wants to get numbers up before culling for skin pigmentation.

We’ve only had them a few years and are working to reduce flaws. There hasn’t been anything major like feather leakage in adults, but some roos have had a bit too much raspberry in their wattles. A few had light combs the first year, but we think we’ve eliminated that issue.

About 25% hatch with light toe tips or mouths. We offer them as pets. It is VERY common and means that a parent might be missing a fibro gene. We also hatched two in 2023 with white wing tips. They grew out fully black, but it is considered a more serious defect. After testing this year, we THINK we found the culprit, so we’ll cautiously reopen our waitlist for 2025. We did add some new genetics this year, too, so we’ll have to see what these new birds are hiding.

We only keep the best of our growouts, so we hope to reduce these minor complaints as time goes on. They’re AWESOME birds and act like spunky little crows.