The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Yes, I understand this but was wondering why I couldn't find it in the US SOP....or did I just miss it in all the reading? There is quite a bit of text to take in in the SOP, so I very well could have missed it, but I have been re-reviewing the SOP since then and have been unable to find it.

Quote:
I should have probably used the word professed or proclaimed or maybe even described, as it is what said individual told the feed store personnel. As for said individuals other birds, I saw his black coppers and was not impressed.....definitely not SQ. Egg color for these birds (both his Welsummers and BCM's) left ALOT to be desired..the eggs that were pulled from the nest box while I was there were identical to a BO or BR egg.

Thanks for your response Tailfeathers, will email you privately.

BTW Tailfeathers- when I posted a pic of one of my new boys a while back on this thread you asked about red mottling in the breast on him. I found another photo of him and posted it a couple pages back for you. He does have some mottling but not too much. I would say pretty sparse. Take a look, hope you can see it clearly enough.

Off topic did you ever come up with a name for your ranch?

 

[EweSheep]

I have seen alot of Welsummers having stubs that came from hatchery stock or some hatchery/breeder lines that DO occur. Calicowoods and Estes Hatchery are the two that do have feather stubbed birds but not as often as Ideal Hatchery or unknown/questionable background.

I would love to know where this so called SQ breeder got his stock from! He would be an absolute disgrace in the breeds themselves! Yep, there are more folks like him, and it's pitiful! Whatever breeds you are working with, avoid so called professional breeder until you do your homework thoroughly and keep talking to people. If you get alot of good vibes and feedbacks on a certain breeder, then all means go and see what he is made of!

If I do find a Welsummer breeder in our club doing that, I would put a red flag next to their name and send off a warning that they must adhere to the standards or be dropped from the membership. I do have a few breeders that I do NOT accept for membership at the WCNA, due to their unethical ways of preserving and promoting the Welsummer breed and we need HONEST breeders, not for monetary gain or personal gain to fame by deceiving other people about their birds. I am sure the Marans Club is that way too!

 

[Tailfeathers]

Quote:
Oh my goodness, please tell me this isn't JG again?!

God Bless,

 

[Tailfeathers]

Quote:
I don't have a copy of the SOP right now (long story) but if I recall correctly, it is where the Standard talks about the required for "clean-legged" class of birds and not under the "Welsummer" part specifically.

Quote:
Please do. I haven't gotten it yet so wanted to send a little reminder. I really would like that info.

Quote:
I had to go back a few pages but I found it. I can make out some now. It's still a little hard to tell how much in the pic but, like I said before, he looks really good from what I can see.

On the Subject of red-mottling in the breast, I was talking about that with my breeder when he came up last Friday. I had recently read that the mottled chest of the roo had a lot to do with the shafting in the females and he confirmed that for me. He said he had read this way back a long time ago in some German publication if I remember right. Below is something I copied from something I got somewhere off the internet. I think it may have been off the Yahoo Group site so let me say up from that I ain't taking no credit for this and all credit goes to the person who wrote it - whoever that was:

"The shafting in your LF Rust Partridge Welsummer is easier to explain if you look at your hens. Your hens hackle feather has a dusky gold shaft on a black feather that is trimmed in the dusky gold. The body feathers will have a pale yellow shaft that should be on each feather out to but does not include the tail although there is a slight hint of a yellow shaft when you have a bird with strong shafting. The body feather color and shaft are out onto the wing but the primaries do not have any shaft color. There should also be a Rusty Hue on the body feather color of the wing but the Rust must not go up onto the back or the body. When you look at the brown of the breast feathers the shaft is slightly lighter and hints of a shaft. There is no unusual shaft in the tail feathers. The quality of shafting comes from the correct choosing of a roo --- mottle chested. A Black chest erase's the prominence of the shaft. It fades from the tail moving forward on succeeding generations. It can be reversed and brought back --- takes years and many generations though."

Quote:
Nope. Not yet. I'm leaning toward "2-Tall Tailfeathers Ranch". All comments are welcome!

Robin, well said. I appreciate the "open arms" and inclusiveness attitude that you have toward those belonging to the WCNA while at the same time balancing that with an unwillingness to allow unscrupulous folks to take advantage of others by capitalizing on the so-called "Show Quality" term.

God Bless,

 

[pinkchick]

EweSheep~
Once the guy flipped out on me for saying something about the feathered toes and shanks.....I WAS OUTTA THERE! Flip out on me.... I did not even bother to ask where he acquired his birds, but, get this....I did a little nosing around today and was able to find out that he had ordered his birds from a local feed store....250 of them!!!!

Apparently there was quite a considerable amount of wait time so he placed an order at 4 feed stores. The feed stores were able to fill this request, but shipments were several and many. He did not have 250 of them when I was there. Wonder how many folks have been taken for a ride????? Sad very sad!!!

On the other hand..I was flattered that someone asked for my opinion (cause in reality usually one gets it without having to ask

) even if they ended being funky over it.


I just love the breed and can only hope to do it justice.

*edited because it's late and I'm tired *
Tailfeathers~ I will PM you I promise.

 

[CountryMom]

Quote:
Oh my goodness, please tell me this isn't JG again?!

God Bless,

It is DF and if you don't know I will pm you privately. Breeder from Houston.

I am seriously not sure if these birds are complete junk or semi OK. The egg color started off pretty nice and dark, but has lightened. However, they didn't lay until they were 7 months of age and are only a year now. With our winters being milder, I am not sure if they are going to stop for the winter and are at the end of their laying cycle....thus the lighter color? They are still giving me speckled eggs and nearly 3 a day ...sometimes 2, but laying everyday. The birds do not have white ear lobes, do not have feather legs, and do not have any white feathers...other than the down under the saddle on the roos. I have pics posted a few pages back. I was told these birds were Barber lines which didn't mean much to me not knowing, but she made kind of a big deal on them.

 

[CountryMom]

Quote:
Hmmm would have been interesting to be a fly in that coop!

 

[Tailfeathers]

Oh, that's great. Just what the Welsummers need - a bunch more breeding stock running around with stubs and promulgating the DQ all that much more.

For those who have followed my posts on Welsummers may recall that I wrote about stubs and hatcheries quite some time ago. And unfortunately, stubs is not the end of it. There is white feathers showing up and, get this, gray in their feet! Not too mention really lousy looking eggs.

All that to say this. This is just further stark evidence that the Welsummers need folks who are serious breeders that exercise strict breeding program and emphasize selective breeding.

Cull hard and cull often!

God Bless,

 

[CountryMom]

Ok, I think I just made myself more confused on these birds of mine than before. I had decided that probably they needed to go after finding out the info on the breeder on here. I have been disappointed in their egg color loosing it's darkness. Well, I just went to Whitmore farms to check out their Welsummers. Beautiful birds. I noticed two things. First, some of their eggs are light and some dark. I had dark and now light. So maybe I just need to wait until spring and see if they have lightened for their laying cycle? And secondly, one of their rooster pictures shows one with quite a bit of red in his breast. Of course they also have one that has a ton of black in the breast. So what am I to look for on these guys? Now I kick myself for not taking pictures of their dark eggs compared to the light ones. Kids decided that they like the dark ones first in the fry pan. lolol

 

[pinkchick]

Even though I spent quite a bit of time with the gentleman that I bought my birds from and I saw proof that his original breeders came from Barber years ago, I am POSITIVE that he added to his stock over the years but VERY hard telling whose and what birds he added. I suspect hatchery birds because I myself have had stubs show up in some offspring even though my birds were not showing this trait. The gene must have been hiding in there somewhere, that is what I think anyway. I culled and culled and culled. It took a lot of time and a lot of hatching and a lot of culling to get to where I am now with my birds and believe me IMO I have a long way to go. I have slimmed down my original breeders to 2 birds from that man...... 2. Very disheartening, but a good learning tool for me. It was hard and time consuming work to segregate certain birds and hatch from them to see who threw the stubs and cull, but very worth it.

The hardest part of that learning curve was being responsible enough to call the few people that I had sold hatching eggs to and tell them that this may pop up in their birds. I actually refunded money to 2 of those people. Fortunately they were very understanding and those people are not breeding the birds they just have them for layers and the pretty eggs. It could have gone differently and for that I am grateful.