Can anyone tell Barnevelder and Welsummer x chicks apart?

[Willawong Hill]

Hello,
My aunt and uncle have hatched out 8 chicks, based off eggs they should have 3 pure Barnevalders (blue or gold laced) for themselves and 5 Welsummer x RIR chicks for other family members; however they all look fairly similar. Can someone help with which 3 chicks are most likely to be barnies? Obviously it is going to be easier once they're older but they're thinking to raise them separately.

 

[NatJ]

Try checking wing feathers, to see if any have blue feathers (blue Barnevelder) rather than black (which could come from either set of parents.)

You probably won't find all three that way, but might find one or two.


Do you have photos of the parent birds?

Are the "blue" Barnevelders supposed to be blue lacing on gold, or solid blue, or blue on silver? If they're supposed to have silver, then any chick with white in the feathers has a good chance of being one of them.

The Welsummer x Rhode Island Red: do you know which is the father and which is the mother?

 

[Willawong Hill]

No photos of parent birds, sorry. Blue barnies are probably blue laced gold, i haven't seen a solid blue in Aus and the silver seems very rare here too. Pretty sure RIR was the roo, but am getting that checked. Ta!

 

[NatJ]

Welsummer chicks tend to be striped like chipmunks, and Rhode Island Red chicks tend to be red and may have stripes on their heads, and Barnevelder chicks (usual black-laced-gold color) tend to be dark with stripes on their backs too.

Which leaves me thoroughly puzzled about those light colored chicks!

In the second picture, it's pretty clear that 3 chicks are solid and light-colored, and 5 chicks are red/brown/patterned. So if you have nothing else to go by, but you're looking for a group of 5 and a group of 3, you could divide them that way.

 

[Willawong Hill]

I think the light coloured chicks have to be the ones with RIR in them I think as chipmunk ones are laced and the barnies should be laced. The problems is there's 5 laced chicks as you say but only 3 barnies. The welsummer will add lacing though which i guess is why all the others aren't solid colours. My guess was the three most chipmunk-y were going to be the barnies, but it's hard to tell which those are - maybe the three closest to the wall in the top right hand corner of the first photo?

 

[NatJ]

I think the light coloured chicks have to be the ones with RIR in them I think as chipmunk ones are laced and the barnies should be laced. The problems is there's 5 laced chicks as you say but only 3 barnies. The welsummer will add lacing though which i guess is why all the others aren't solid colours. My guess was the three most chipmunk-y were going to be the barnies, but it's hard to tell which those are - maybe the three closest to the wall in the top right hand corner of the first photo?

Maybe
I guess there are two groups of three: the light/solid ones, and the patterned/darker ones. The two middle ones I could see going with either of the groups of three.

Your chicks definitely have me puzzled!

I'd love to see an update when they grow up more, because I'd really like to know which ones really do turn out to be what!

 

[Willawong Hill]

Individual chick pics in case that helps:

 

[Willawong Hill]

3,4,7,8 Are my top 4 but only 3 can be barnies.

I have confirmation hen was pure RIR, Rooster was Welsummer x Duckwing.

 

[NatJ]

I have confirmation hen was pure RIR, Rooster was Welsummer x Duckwing.

Well that changes things a bit!

Do we know if the "duckwing" was a silver duckwing? (Vs. a gold duckwing)
If there's silver involved, then some of his chicks should have silver (white) in their feathers instead of brown/gold. (There would probably be some with gold from the Welsummer side of his ancestry, too.)
You could check them again, because it's easier to see when they've grown their feathers a bit longer, but I think I might be seeing silver in 1, 2, 5, 6.

3,4,7,8 Are my top 4 but only 3 can be barnies.

Oh, that's a hard one.
Maybe put just those four together (in a box for a few minutes), and see whether any one of them looks like the odd one out when it's just those four.

By this point, I think we know that any chick with blue (rather than black) should be a Barnevelder, and any chick with silver (rather than gold/brown) should be a not-Barnevelder. But that still leaves the ones with gold + black that could be either way.

And it's so hard to see the feather colors in those first few days!

 

[Willawong Hill]

Updated chick pics: