The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[Rock Home Isle]

I spent a while learning how the autosexing genetics work and found a lot of info about turning my favorite breed, the Welsummers, into an autosexing Welbar. Really, a Welbar is just a Crele Welsummer. There are Silver Duckwing Welsummers, but when the Crele were created they were given the name Welbar, I assume to ride the wave of popularity around autosexing "*bar" breeds.
This is a fantastic site to learn about the history and the current status in the UK: http://www.harislau.info/welbars
I used the breeding chart on that page to create them, and it also shows how to outcross back to Welsummers to enhance the genepool. Of all the autosexing breeds that I am aware of, only Welbars have this property of being easily outcrossed to their founding breed, you can't do this with Legbars, Rhodebars, or Bielefelders, but it's trivial with Welbars. A Welbar cockerel over any Welsummer pullet will produce 100% female Welbars. Cull any male chicks, put their father over them and you have a 100% autosexing Welbar flock in a single generation.

Okay...I think I gained insight into your breeding project today. Pretty AWESOME. I totally enjoyed all that information. It really gets your mind going....I read the site over and over.

Very cool.

 

[chickensfinally]

She is doing well with them. Had them out in the sun most of the day today. I was working outside so I got lots of sneak peeks.

Yay! it's always such fun to watch a good broody mama with her littles

 

[daxigait]

Hi guys, I ordered two "pullets" from a hatchery. This bird hatched March first. Is it really a pullet?

 

[daxigait]

Sorry, they have not fixed the Android glitch yet so I had to go to desktop to post the pictures.

 

[RossB]

I have Welsummers almost that exact same age. Looks pretty much like my rooster.

 

[daxigait]

That is what I am afraid of. I don't know who sexed their chicks that day, but they did a lousy job on the RIR too. The weird part is you can feather sex Welsummer chicks so even if that is unclear in their birds how do you mess up both vent and feather?
Thanks

 

[stryker]

That is what I am afraid of. I don't know who sexed their chicks that day, but they did a lousy job on the RIR too. The weird part is you can feather sex Welsummer chicks so even if that is unclear in their birds how do you screw both vent and feather?
Thanks

I have been having the same problem from a hatchery this year with sexing welsummers. I ordered over 100 pullets and got 27 roosters.

The famous question is...... what do hatcheries do with all of their extra roos?... They send them to my house as pullets... LOL The hatchery sent a replacement of pullets and this time the person knew what they were doing..

 

[microchick]

Sorry y'all are having problems. I'm doing a happy dance today. My Buff O hen hatched out 8 chicks yesterday and today. After two broody sessions I FINALLY got a a pure Welly chick from one of the eggs I gave her to hatch. I've had ongoing problems with fertility in my Welly eggs, not from lack of trying on the part of my Welly rooster, I must say, just fussy, picky, prissy hens but the old boy finally got the job done at least once.

It's a doll and if eyeliner and head V's are any indication, it's hopefully a pullet!

I'm seeing a lot of Welsummer, Buff O crosses also and finally got some pictures of my young BO/Welly cross cockerels to post. I'll try to get them up tomorrow. I have to say they are very unique looking boys. The Welly/Buff cross pullet is a uniform almost terra cotta color but the boys are very pretty.

I have one last egg that is in my incubator. It's a Welsummer egg that was abandoned with 3 other eggs. I candled it. It has a mature chick in it just no sign of an internal or external pip as of yet. It has tomorrow to show some progress. I hate to have to give up on it.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I hope that last egg pips out a nice little pullet.

 

[daxigait]

I hope that last egg pips out a nice little pullet.

x2 .