The Welsummer Thread!!!!

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I made two websites, the WCNA and my own "Last of the Welsummer Wine".

Cool
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Got two lovely emails from Royce........it is going to require my time in reading it in depth. He has brought up some excellent points for us to consider about our birds.

Strains and lines!


I do get both of them confused as ONE but it is different. Look at the Arabian lines, you have the Kuhailian strain with Lasma Arabian lines. That is DEEP if you ask me. Next thing you know, we would be putting pedigrees or family trees on our Welsummers!
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You know what, that would be great for the newsletter for all of us to read! Thanks Royce!
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I am thinking about putting an extra page for BREEDERS so the customers can go over there and look at what the breeders are offering and selling. I would put down information of their websites and they can contact them directly instead of going thru me. And I would put a list of eggs, chicks, shipping, etc. on it so buyers can make informed choices.

Breeders, please do screen your emails and make sure if the subject lines do not come up "Welsummers", do not answer it! It pays to be vigilant because there are hackers out there making problems for some of us. That is why many of our members do not want to disclose the information of their addresses or phone numbers for that reason. If we all be careful, we can provide anyone information about our Welsummers and not worrying about our computer crashing down on us because of a trojan virus.
 
ewesheep, I would like to see a list that compiles the different lines and strains that are the best/most common. I'm having difficulty expressing my self here
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I have Nate's birds which are Grisham/Hall lines. If I want to add a different line to improve mine I'd like to have a source that lets me know what's available. I'd like to know what traits specific lines are bred for ie were they breeding more for egg color, body shape, coloring, egg size etc.
I have Barnevelders as well and it took me awhile to recognize that some of the breeders were so focused on breeding for body shape and lacing that the egg color suffered. I don't want that to happen to the Welsummers. I also don't want the reverse to happen where people start breeding for egg color and forget body and coloring.

again, having some difficulty putting my thoughts into words here.
 
I would love to get more information on that too.

What I know of the Barber birds, they have bigger combs and bigger waddles.

With the others I can not tell very well. I also have trouble expressing myself too!

I never knew what the breeder's goals were on their birds. If we have birds that has more "pinkish salmon" in color, one line would be stronger than the other. BTW, pinkish salmon is a fault, you do not want pink in their pullets breasts.

Sometimes it takes a while to find that "perfect" nick for your birds...like Nate's birds, you may want to stay focused on the birds he has or the second or third generation from the original flock like Hall or Grisham. If you can find 100% Hall or Grisham stock and cross them with Nate's birds, you probably would not lose too much of what the original breeder had in mind. Its a pity most of the older breeders like Lowell Barber, Horzt are gone now. It would be very difficult to find the original stock that has NOT had any outside blood. I do know TWO of the breeders have the original stock by Lowell Barber and has NOT bring in new blood...those you want to go to, if you are wanting to stick with Barber birds. They may be a couple generations removed but bringing it back may either give you the better stock than you have or it would blow up in your face, having to start all over again. If you had success with the first generation, keep going at it as long you have the type, color, body structure, egg color and production are still there.

I think we can keep trying to express here in what we want to do with our birds, keeping the origins (since there are US, Germany and Dutch, UK/Wales). If one wants to stick with that origin, it can be done and we have to cull hard to get where we want to be. Egg colors and design patterns (speckles or no speckles) would come into play as well.

I am sure Nate has his own goals in what kind of Welsummers he wants to produce. I think he is already on the second or third generation of Welsummers. I am not 100 positive if he bought Welsummers from two different sources and bred them together or they were already combined.

Royce has a good bookkeeping on his Welsummers, dividing them up into breeders and kept them straight and he does have a pen of crossed lines of two different breeders. I do not know of his results on those crossed breeders lines. It is a hit or miss in that department and hopefully it would be not be backfiring in future generation that they fell apart.

Linebreeding and inbreeding........you do have the good and bad things about it. Like our collies, we have linebred alot and it has given us success in our show dogs but it was not the right "nick" because later on, they felt apart as they aged. We want consistency in our birds without falling apart at a later age or problems cropping up. Inbreeding is not for amateurs, it has to be done with upmost care and heavy culling because you would have the best and BAD things cropping up on the chicks. Some of the best birds do come from inbreeding...like daughters to father, mothers to sons, aunts and uncles, cousins to cousin and if there is a specific bird that you really like and want more of his offsprings to look like him, your best bet is to breed his daughters back to him.

I am sure someone can explain it much better...there is a chart somewhere in this BYC telling about how you can breed from a pair or four pairs of chickens and not have to worry about getting new blood for a good while. I hope we can keep their vigor, along with their color, body structure, egg production and egg colors as well as the most important thing, disposition and temperment. Nasty roos or very aggressive hens do not have a place in my flock nor do I want that to pass down on future generations of nastyness.
 

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