Difference between Brown leghorns and Welsummers?

[teddiliza]

How do you tell the difference?
Most have said these are Welsummers, but I saw some photos of some brown leghorns and they look VERY similar. It's hard for a newbie to tell, or maybe they're too young yet.

Here's an age progression. ....

First few days:

1st week:

2nd week

Today....

And the cutest pic of all....

Thanks!
Teddi

 

[EweSheep]

Brown Leghorns definately have the white earlobes while the Welsummers does not. That is the only difference I know of right off hand. I got a friend that has a couple of Brown Leghorn pullets and if you put my Welsummers and her Leghorns side by side, the white earlobes was a dead giveaway.

 

[hcammack]

Sorry I can't help you more I have never had either of these breeds. You could check feathersite they have alot of pictures of all of the breeds of chicken.

Henry

 

[teddiliza]

Okay, so white earlobes and white eggs. That sums up the differences. I noticed the leghorns have bigger combs on the hens.

Thank you both!

Teddi

 

[sweetshoplady]

Cute! Did you hatch these?

 

[teddiliza]

Believe it or not, it was a fluke, I walked into the farm store (Orschelns) and there they were. I couldn't resist them. The label said Cuckoo Maran, and I didn't know what cuckoo chicks looked like. So I bought four hoping some would be female and lay dark eggs. Turns out, Welsummers lay dark eggs too. These are my first ever chicks, and doing really well with all the advice I get from this forum.

It was really cute, the one in the picture with my son, today jumped out of the brooder and flew up on his shoulder when we were giving them their daily cheerio treat. I told him it liked him and wanted to snuggle and be his pet. It looked quite comfortable. I hope that one is a girl. I'd be heartbroken if it acted mean to him when it grows up. Then it will become dinner....

Teddi

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

We went to a poultry show that was having an auction, we went and saw that brown leghorns were on the list, we had been wanting some for the white eggs. Well, they kept growing and growing, they were very large but we thought that all show type leghorns started that way, well at about 4 months old when there was no sign of white in the earlobes, the hens combs were still tiny, and they were fat, we figured out that they were welsummers. The main differences are the earlobes, egg color, floppy combs on hens, and size.

 

[teddiliza]

Oh good, I like smaller combs. I hear the bigger ones have problems with frostbite.

Thanks!