Help? Sexing Welsummer & Cuckoo Maran chicks

[living2ride]

Quote:

Yep, you're right. Clear as mud!

Too funny!

 

[NateDomRIR]

I just hatched five Welsummer chicks, (1) dark one I think yall are calling it a chipmunky, (3) yellows and (1) in between buff color!

These are my first Welsummers. They came out of 3 dark eggs and 3 dark speckled eggs. I took pics of the parent stock. I dunno?

 

[BantyRooster]

Still curious, what did they turn out to be??

 

[EweSheep]

Me too! I never came across like these light colors on my Welsummers!

 

[hoppy]

I emailed the original poster for an update, she said it was ok to post this
this is what she said:
Sure! I had one survive to adulthood, and still have her. It was a hen and she looks like a normal welsummer hen and lays a nice dark reddish brown egg.
Thanks!
Angie

so the yellow chick changed dramatically.

 

[becky3086]

NatDomRIR,
I will be curious to see what you hatch out of your eggs in 4 days from the same person I got my yellow chick from. Since they closed down my thread, I had to post to you here. Please let us know.

I am sure the hens can turn out the same color as regular welsummers, that doesn't mean they aren't mixed.

 

[Tailfeathers]

I just became aware of this thread and almost jumped right into the discussion but I have learned to check myself and do some research first. However, in this case my suspicions proved correct.

Some of you know that I raise, breed, and show Welsummers but am the first to admit I sure don't know everything about the breed. However, the birds I have came from one of the original five breeders that brought them to this country and got them accepted into the APA.

I just spoke with him about this. He has hatched out hundreds and hundreds - if not thousands - of Welsummer chicks and says he has never - not one single time - ever seen a light, yellowish, or buff colored chick. They have all been the stereotypical partridge "chipmunk" colored little fuzzy butts.

So that would lead me to believe that these chicks, while coming from a Welsummer hen and a dark egg, were sired by something other than a Welsummer - or at the very least a pure Welsummer.

I read another like-type post where the person who got the eggs (and the yellow chicks) said they got their eggs either from Ideal or from a private breeder in WA that got their chicks from Ideal.

Most likely this is exactly the source of the problem. I've talked many times about the various problems that can be and are associated with getting birds from a hatchery. Ideal or anyone else. And I'm not bashing hatcheries but the fact is when one buys an egg - whether it be a hatchery or a private person - you do NOT know for sure what you are getting. Unless you were personally involved with the selection of the birds, the pairing them up, and the entire process until you collect the eggs, you just can not be certain of what you're getting. When hatcheries buy eggs to then sell the chicks from them - they are at the total mercy of "hoping" what they are told they are getting actually turns out to be such.

This thread is a perfect example of how folks need to ask a whole lot more questions before buying eggs, chicks, or birds from folks. For example, I know many folks who sell eggs that put a rooster in with a bunch of hens and then just collect and ship.

Folks who have bought eggs from me know that I number each egg with the corresponding pen from which it came. They also get an email that tells them who the specific mother and father of the egg is. They also get at least several different lines so they can have their own breeding plan down the road without the possibility of brother-sister matings. That can't be done with just throwing a bunch of birds together and then collecting and shipping.

Also, just as an example, a month or so ago we had a severe windstorm come thru and completely blew my rooster pen over and down a hill. I have both Welsummers and my Ameraucana roosters that I'm not using in the breeding pens in that one pen. Because I could not be certain that a rooster did not get on any of my Welsummers (or Ameraucanas) before I got them back into the pen, I had to take all my planned breeding on the unpenned hens off the schedule and delayed those breeding pens for a full month. Even after that, I tested eggs for several days afterwards to make sure there was no fertility before putting them in breeding pens.

Maybe I'm wrong but if my breeder hasn't seen a yellow chick in perhaps a thousand hatchings, I'm willing to bet I'm not. Therefore, the fact that several folks seem to be getting yellow chicks from Welsummer eggs - and perhaps from the same source(?) - leads me to believe there was simply a lack of QA/QC in the breeding process and organization of the breeding plan.

I hope this helps a lot of folks in the future.

God Bless,

 

[living2ride]

You are probably right Tailfeathers. For myself, it doesn't matter if there's a smidge of another breed mixed in there. I don't breed, I just like a variety of pretty colors in both my pasture and my egg cartons. But if I were to try to develop my own purebred strain of Welsummers, I wouldn't add her to the breeding pen.

 

[EweSheep]

Thanks Tailfeathers! That is ONE informative information.

Somewhere in the genes, there is a NON Welsummer going on in there.

Thanks for clearing it up once and for all!