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I'm hoping that their immaturity is part of the reason this puff of fluff at the point where their tail meets their back is so obvious. As their saddle feathers come in and get some length, the lighter feathers won't be obvious. When they get a bit more filled out, I'll post a picture and you...

Please help me with this - all of our young cockerels have light grey fluff at the base of the tail. They were hatched on January 1st. Is this a fault? A flaw? Do I wait until their final adult feathers grow in to worry about it? How do I breed to correct for this if all my cocks have this...

Of the 24 eggs we started with, 18 will go into lockdown on Wednesday. We're hoping for a great breeding trio for the county fair in July.

We set 24 eggs for a January 1st hatch. We just candled and found 19 are developing. This will be the birds our son takes to the county fair with 4H. Hopefully, we'll have great results. Cross your fingers!

Quote: We are setting Wellsummer eggs for the New Year's Day hatch. We've had a light on the hens since mid-October and will turn it off now that we have our clutch to set. Our 4H boy wants more mature birds for the county/state fair next year. Last year we had a pretty late start, since we...

Quote: So maybe I'd need to keep lights on in the evening, too. Otherwise, I'd only have 12 hours of light per day. I mean, last year I didn't see a single egg from November to March. I expected them to slow down, but didn't anticipate a complete halt in production. Javas and Australorps...

You must have day lengths like we do here in Minnesota. Were you able to keep them laying into December? How many hours of light did you give them? I was thinking to set it so light begins at 4:30 AM and then turn off the light at 8 AM and let twilight happen normally. Sunset is at 4:45 in...

I understand, and we haven't put lights on our flock before. The problem is that in order to enter birds in the county fair for 4H, the hatch date must be as close to January 1st as possible in order to get the most mature bird. When we don't get eggs out of our flock in early winter, we have a...

Last winter our welsummers shut down egg production in early November, and we didn't get another egg until March. Since our 4H-er in the family is desperate to bring this breed to the fair as developed as possible, we'd like to hatch some eggs as close to January 1st as possible. We will need to...

I have my Welummers separate from the main flock. Maybe if I combined them, it would be different.

I was wondering if anyone else has this issue with their Welsummers. I have two flocks, a flock of 15 Welsummers and a flock of about 40 mostly black Javas. My Wellies are the only ones I've had to put pinless peepers on because they seem to enjoy pulling out tail feathers when they are on the...

Quote: Erhard sent an extra egg, but two broke. My mail delivery person claimed responsibility. She said said she had it on the bottom of her boxes and hadn't even read the "Fragile - Hatching Eggs" label. These eggs traveled from Washington State to Minnesota in mid-February. Of the 17 that...

Here are my new Welsummer hatchlings from eggs mailed to us from Erhard at Kummer Farms They're too cute not to share. Our best guess is that we have seven females and five males. Hopefully we can grow out a good looking trio to take to the county fair. Our son is in 4-H and has bemoaned the...

We hatched a dozen welsummers this weekend, and our best guess is seven females and five males. Then on Monday, the eggs the students bought for my birthday arrived very poorly packaged. Four were broken and oozing all over the others. I don't hold out a lot of hope for them, but put them in the...

How sweet is this? Today is my birthday and my students in my fifth hour class told me they bought me Welsummer hatching eggs which should be arriving in a week or two. I have no idea whose eggs they found. I just thought it was so nice of them and proof that they know me and my interests. The...

Quote: I have an old fashion slide projector and it works great for candling dark eggs.

He did have the option of standing where we had the run cleared of the snow, but he chose to stand over by me. Must have been that the BOSS was worth it. Actually, the wellies are really tolerant of the cold weather. I have to keep petroleum jelly on him to protect from frostbite, though.

Got my first egg today since Halloween. We checked and it IS fertile, so our boy knows his purpose. Here's his picture out in the sun.

Picked up 14 Wellie eggs tonight - nice size and great color. Unfortunately, my broody decided she was over this sitting thing two days ago. We fired up the incubator and had it all set just in case. If we have a persistant broody, we'll slip them under later. Cross your fingers. Hopefully...

I have a broody cochin and found some wellie hatching eggs just down the road. Looks like, with a bit of luck, i'll have me some chicks in a few weeks.