Crested Welbar ?

[JurassicBawk]

Hi all. I'm not familiar with the Welbar breed other than research I've done online after picking up 4 babies in early May from my local Tractor Supply. I asked the store what hatchery they used and could not get an answer, and have searched all the hatcheries that actively are advertising Welbars but couldn't find one that would supply to my area (Chattanooga, TN.) My 4 babies are about 2 months old now, and one of them has a definite crest. Of the 4 one has a darker head, two are redheads, and the crested one has a lighter blonde head, but all 4 have the same body color. Is there such a thing as a crested welbar? I've found info on the crested cream Legbar, but the crest was a product of adding in the blue egg genes, and a Welbar should have Welsummer and Barred Rock ancestory with no blue genes to cause a crest.

I'm not concerned about what she looks like or what color egg she lays, as I already have another older mixed flock of Easter Eggers, OEGB, bantam Polish, and Silkie mixes who lay a rainbow. I mostly wanted to make sure the chicks I took home were in fact girls and the autosexing on the Welbars was why I got them. So as long as they're all girls, we're all good. I was just curious if anyone else had a crest on a bird that's supposed to lay brown and possibly dark brown eggs or if maybe she's something else I'm not familiar with.

 

[JurassicBawk]

This is all 4, with the crested on the right. It just appeared within the last week.

 

[JurassicBawk]

More pics.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

She’s a legbar mix, which would make her an Easter egger.

 

[JurassicBawk]

So then my question if you're saying she's a Legbar mix is... do hatcheries regularly mix up their stock or have impure stock? I bought her as a Welbar, with the sign advertising a rare breed that has very dark brown eggs. All research tells me they come from the Welsummer and Barred Rock ancestory. All 4 were in a bin of other Welbar babies, and nothing else in the store was anything close to an Easter Egger or Legbar for them to have put someting in the wrong bin. They only had Cornish, Black Stars, Rhode Island Reds, and Barred Rocks in the store at that time.

I'm fine with whatever she is, and honestly if they had been selling Cream Legbars I probably would have gotten a couple anyway. I think it's just strange that she sprouted a crest and looks almost identical in color (just slightly more blonde) and body type to the others but potentially has completely different DNA. Either she was a hatchery boxing mistake as a Cream Legbar, is a weird outcrop Welbar, or is a mix being sold incorrectly.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

So then my question if you're saying she's a Legbar mix is... do hatcheries regularly mix up their stock or have impure stock? I bought her as a Welbar, with the sign advertising a rare breed that has very dark brown eggs. All research tells me they come from the Welsummer and Barred Rock ancestory. All 4 were in a bin of other Welbar babies, and nothing else in the store was anything close to an Easter Egger or Legbar for them to have put someting in the wrong bin. They only had Cornish, Black Stars, Rhode Island Reds, and Barred Rocks in the store at that time.

I'm fine with whatever she is, and honestly if they had been selling Cream Legbars I probably would have gotten a couple anyway. I think it's just strange that she sprouted a crest and looks almost identical in color (just slightly more blonde) and body type to the others but potentially has completely different DNA. Either she was a hatchery boxing mistake as a Cream Legbar, is a weird outcrop Welbar, or is a mix being sold incorrectly.

She isn’t a welbar x legbar. She’s just mislabeled. It happens at feedstores all the time. For example, I recently saw a thread where someone bought cornish x chicks and most of the chicks ended up being leghorns.

She has the same color as the welbars because, in terms of feather color, they’re very similar.

Cream legbars are barred cream gold duckwing. Welbars are barred gold duckwing. Cream legbars are often crossed to welsummers (gold duckwing) to create olive eggers. Since the cream gene is recessive, it doesn’t show up in the offspring, so the resulting legbar mixes are barred gold duckwing, just like a welbar.

 

[JurassicBawk]

I get what you are saying, but I don’t think this is a case of TSC bin mixup and why I was questioning the hatchery practices. There were no other chipmunk striped babies in the store, no olive eggers/easter eggers available for purchase at all. I’ve seen my share of “yellow chick” bins with Cornish and Leghorns together and know that happens all too well. If she was put in the wrong box it seems it would have had to come from the hatchery that way, and I’d think they would have better practices than to mix up their own breeds. I guess it’s a good thing I’m happy with her however she is, and it wasn’t a case of me spending big money for a particular breed just to get a mutt.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I get what you are saying, but I don’t think this is a case of TSC bin mixup and why I was questioning the hatchery practices. There were no other chipmunk striped babies in the store, no olive eggers/easter eggers available for purchase at all. I’ve seen my share of “yellow chick” bins with Cornish and Leghorns together and know that happens all too well. If she was put in the wrong box it seems it would have had to come from the hatchery that way, and I’d think they would have better practices than to mix up their own breeds. I guess it’s a good thing I’m happy with her however she is, and it wasn’t a case of me spending big money for a particular breed just to get a mutt.

I believe they usually come correctly labeled from the hatchery, it’s just errors at the feedstore itself that result in chicks being put in the wrong bin. If you didn’t see any other chipmunk chicks, it’s likely that there were other olive eggers mixed in with the welbars as well.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I bought these 2 as Crested Legbar are they? 10weeks old

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

I bought these 2 as Crested Legbar are they? 10weeks oldView attachment 2739524View attachment 2739523

Looks like it. If they don’t lay blue eggs, then they’re one of the new legbar mix Easter eggers (or olive eggers).