barnevelder vs. welsumer color and # of eggs

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

I have 2 barnevelder pullets (hatchery stock). The darkest egg in my avatar and the egg to the right of it are from my 2 barnies. Their eggs are darker than the BR, RIR, & BSL eggs, but they lay every other day instead of every day, like my production breeds do.

I don't know if it's typical for barnevelders to go broody, but both of mine went broody this year (at 7 months old) and hatched some eggs. The first hen is now broody again (9 months old), but I'm trying to break her. It's way too hot here and I'm not about to let her set on a nest for 3 weeks this time of year. Out of my 13 pullets (5 different breeds), the 2 barnevelders are the only chickens that went broody on me.

 

[Tailfeathers]

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I can sex Day-Old Welsummers with about 99% accuracy from their head caps and eye-liners but I have not quite got the Barnevelders down yet.

God Bless,

 

[verlaj]

amazondoc - Wow - that link was educational! I ordered Wellies and Barnies from Ideal this year, among others, to get a sampling of various breeds to see what kind I really wanted to keep. I read here not to expect the hatchery birds to lay as dark an egg as you might expect from a breeder's birds, but I had no idea the eggs would be so light. I get darker eggs than those pictured from one of my current layers - either a Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, or GLW - not sure which.

My youngsters are several weeks away from laying - will be interested to see what I get.

 

[amazondoc]

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Keep in mind that it's VERY difficult to accurately capture egg colors in pics. That's why I usually try to include several breeds of eggs in one pic -- the pic is more for comparison between breeds IN the pic than for comparison between pic and real life.

 

[verlaj]

Yes - of course - but still, those are pretty light eggs, and not even close to the Maran eggs pictured.

 

[Sillystunt]

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Coollink! From a selling point, which is better welsummers or maran eggs?? Love those pic's!!

 

[amazondoc]

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Right. Barnie eggs, especially in this country, will not even be in the same ballpark as good Marans. I do have a few "Marans", however, that lay around that color.

 

[amazondoc]

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Thanks!

For hatching, Marans eggs. For eating, I dunno -- haven't sold any for eating yet! So far, all my "eating" eggs have been given to friends and family -- and they'll eat any color!

 

[BlackBart]

I have talked to two serious chicken breeders, conservationists of Welsummers and Double Laced Barnevelders.

I bought Wellies from the first private breeder and she told me hers are from certain lines. She weeded out all the undesirable traits and kept the lines that she liked which produced birds true to the breed standard and still kept the egg production and color.
Beautiful terra cotta brown eggs. She also said as the hens get older the eggs get paler.
I think the girls have striped heads and the boys have solid heads. We will see when they get older.
This breeder also raises Pedesencas and I asked her if they were flighty and she said her line is not.

I also spoke with a breeder of Barnevelders from rare lines. She is having trouble finding good stock (not hatchery stock) for fresh bloodlines. I think she will import from Holland. Her stock looks like the pictures you see of Barnevelders from Holland. Also she said as the hens get older the eggs get paler.

So from talking to them, Pedesencas are the darkest, then the Barns and Wellies are different colors of brown but both not as dark as the Peds.

 

[Tailfeathers]

I raise, breed, and show both Barnevelders and Welsummers. I don't have enough time to go into it all now so I will just say this has all been covered before. If you do a search on BYC, you should find plenty of info.

In short I will just say that you must compare apples to apples, etc. For example, you can't lump all Marans into the same generality. I have seen Barnevelder and Welsummer eggs that were darker than Marans. Also, Barnies are a more copper brown and Wellies are a more reddish-brown.

God Bless,