The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[Hens and Roos]

Happy New Years

We have action in our incubator this am- so far 2 Andalusian chicks are out with 4 more working on zipping. As far as we can tell no Wellie eggs have pipped but we can't see every side of the egg. Today is day 20 for the hatch!

Thanks for all the information being shared!

 

[luvs2ride1979]

Does anyone know of a good Wellsummer breeder that ships day-old chicks, preferably sexed ones? I'm looking for good quality, something that could be shown at our local fairs. My daughter wants to show some chickens and she really likes the two hatchery Wellsummers we have now, but there are no "show breeders" in Arkansas that I can find. I'd really like a trio, 2 pullets and a cockerel. I'm using the above mentioned "lines," looking for web sites and FB pages, but I'm not having much luck yet.

If I can't find hatchlings, then I guess we'll looking into buying an incubator and egg turner and give hatching eggs a try

.

Thanks!

 

[Tailfeathers]

Robin, the pictures you've seen of the Barnie eggs are likely either very old pictures or perhaps from birds overseas. I've breed and show LF Barnies and know most of the top breeders here in the USA. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone who has a really dark Barnie egg. They're getting better but up until recently I'd say the best I've seen is light brown.

Having said that, I've never seen a Barnie egg with any kind of red tint. From what I've read online, way back when over in either Holland or German or such, there were some Barnies that laid a very dark egg. Similar to what we have now in the Welsummers. And, as I recall, the Barnie egg was also known to have a somewhat copper tint to them.

The Welsummer egg has been traditionally described as Terra Cotta - which I think most people would say has a "reddish" hint to it. In fact, I think most folks minds would immediately flash to the terra cotta flower pots often seen and used. When my eggs are at their best they are just like but perhaps a tad darker. But very close. The Dutch strain eggs I've seen were deeper and darker but were not quite as "smooth" as those of my German strain eggs.

Thankfully I've learned to keep good records and it wasn't too hard to go back and found the email I got from John Hall. In May of 2009 he told me that he purchased eggs from two sources in 2003. One group of eggs came from Jiles Markham in Missouri, a poultry judge. He did not recall the name of the man in North Carolina who sent the other batch of eggs. In November of this year in an email he wrote me and said he now has some of the darker copper hackled females showing up due to bringing in a half dozen eggs two years ago that were from one of his roosters and hens from a fellow in Ohio who he believes said the hens came from a Grisham line. So from that information we can determine that it was not one of the original five breeders.

That being said, as I've mentioned previously, it really doesn't matter. John has been breeding the Wellies for almost a decade now and what he's got is what he's done. He rightly deserves the full credit for his birds and for those who have seen them, they are very nice as is his eggs.

God Bless,

 

[EweSheep]

Jiles Markham in MO? That is one of the University of MO projects and someone said that the Welsummers were the university's pet projects to find out WHY these "special chickens" laid dark eggs LOL!

I had to dig HARD for my email I got from him, Royce, and you ARE right on the information. What Mr Hall neglected to ask them where they got their stock from. He suspected they came from Lowell Barber. I would have to take THAT with a grain of salt if that is the case because people DO assume alot of things that their Welsummers came from Lowell Barber instead of looking at the whole picture of the five original breeders that imported them in the US.

I had a hunch the Welsummers he had probably came from Bjorn Netland, which he did sold his Welsummers alot when he had to sell some to make more room. I believe both Bjorn and Channing had "hoard" their prized Welsummers over the years, probably selecting only the best of the best.

As for John Hall, we will never know of the origin but we can just leave it as that it did came from Jiles Markham as ONE of the sources Mr Hall had for his flock. As for the other gentleman, I can only guess it may have been Jack Fugate of TN, that is the only thing I can find very CLOSE to NC unless he is talking about Mark Montgomery which I highly doubt it because Mr Montgomery has been in Welsummers if I guess right, in the last five to ten years AT the most. Mark had talked about one of the imported lines but it was Dutch (for the bantams which I am thinking of Andre Van't Weistande). I agree that John Hall is NOT one of the five original but he has left a mark or an impact in the Welsummer World. As for you Royce, you will make an impact once you really got going with your birds and have them far and wide in the US.

In due time, someone will come forward with more information. We all love hearing the history and wished all of them were still alive. All we can do is just talk to the remaning ones if they are willing to come foward and talk about how they love Welsummers, their goals, their expectations and so forth.

I am sure the pictures I have seen probably ARE from overseas. They were goreous but our US Barnies are nothing like the UK Barnies. I would not be surprised at one point of any of our breeders MAY have crossed the Wellies with either Marans or Barnies and kept culling until the standard for the Wellies were consisent. throwbacks like some kind of lacings going on will pop up. I've seen some Wellies having some broken pencilings or broken double lacings with DARK penciling on neck feathers of females. Lovely as a crossbred layer but BAD for trying to get some dark eggs and get a Welsummer standard going on there.

 

[Happy Chooks]

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Which is one of the reasons I wanted to work with them.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Well we are at day 21 of our hatch and we have 19 chicks out of 25 eggs set- we'll see what the rest of today brings!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Congrats!


I started collecting eggs to hatch and I got 2 wellie eggs, then she quit laying.

 

[Hens and Roos]

that's a bummer! We have 6 girls and they are doing pretty good with laying even though a couple are finishing their molt. We have them separated between 2 roosters so we be marking the babies to keep them separate once they are removed from the bator. We got our original eggs from Nate- so 1 rooster and 3 hens.

 

[Tailfeathers]

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Why would I have been wrong if I was simply quoting from an email he sent me?

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Not all five original breeders imported their birds.

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According to my records, Bjorn traded birds back and forth with Lowell all the time. Lowell also shipped Bjorn his birds for the show where they were approved. I don't recall and don't have any records that say whether or not Bjorn actually imported birds of his own. I shall try to remember to ask the next time I talk with him.

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If John says it was NC, I'll take his word for it. I imagine he knows better than anyone.

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As far as I'm concerned, I have already made an impact. Some good and some maybe not so good. The ONLY impact I care to make is what I do with my birds. The only person I'm really trying to please with my breeding program is myself - and maybe a few respected breeders including my good friend Erhard. I would hope that my efforts would meet with the judges approval as well but, like one judge told me, if you want to wind up on Champion Row you'll need to get a solid colored bird. Well, I have wound up on Champion Row with my Welsummers so I take that as quite an achievement.

Having said all that, the main point is that I'm not at all interested in becoming some name that folks can throw around. How "far and wide" my birds go is completely up to those who get my birds and eggs. I will let those folks state what kind of impact I'm having. But I will say this, nothing brings me more joy and satisfaction that when I read something on this thread or one of my other breed threads (like the Barnie thread recently) where somebody is talking about how pleased they are with the birds they've gotten from me or my eggs.

God Bless,

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
Why would I have been wrong if I was simply quoting from an email he sent me?

Quote:
Not all five original breeders imported their birds.

Quote:
According to my records, Bjorn traded birds back and forth with Lowell all the time. Lowell also shipped Bjorn his birds for the show where they were approved. I don't recall and don't have any records that say whether or not Bjorn actually imported birds of his own. I shall try to remember to ask the next time I talk with him.

Quote:
If John says it was NC, I'll take his word for it. I imagine he knows better than anyone.

Quote:
As far as I'm concerned, I have already made an impact. Some good and some maybe not so good. The ONLY impact I care to make is what I do with my birds. The only person I'm really trying to please with my breeding program is myself - and maybe a few respected breeders including my good friend Erhard. I would hope that my efforts would meet with the judges approval as well but, like one judge told me, if you want to wind up on Champion Row you'll need to get a solid colored bird. Well, I have wound up on Champion Row with my Welsummers so I take that as quite an achievement.

Having said all that, the main point is that I'm not at all interested in becoming some name that folks can throw around. How "far and wide" my birds go is completely up to those who get my birds and eggs. I will let those folks state what kind of impact I'm having. But I will say this, nothing brings me more joy and satisfaction that when I read something on this thread or one of my other breed threads (like the Barnie thread recently) where somebody is talking about how pleased they are with the birds they've gotten from me or my eggs.

God Bless,

Now why would that judge make that comment "get a solid colored bird" for the Champion Row?! He must have not known that if the type of the bird along with his handsomeness, well, no one can deny that!

Yes when you get a compliment like that, it makes it worthwhile, even all the headaches and heartaches when you worked hard to create it!

No you are not wrong about the email...I got an email from him as well and it added up perfectly. Had to double check to make sure that I have the right information to put on the WCNA History site. Nothing worse getting a flaming email saying I was all wrong about where the birds came from when I get it from another source but everything has to be right on. It's best to get an email from the person themselves to make sure it all adds up. I hope Mr Hall will find out the gentleman's name in NC but I am not going to if he does not recall at all. Some folks are just like that, forgotten when you don't keep in touch.

I remember some time ago on Eggbid, there was a big hoopla on a farm somewhere down south, goreous Wellies! People were going nuts before the Cuckoo Marans became the rage. I wished I remember who it was but I am certain they spent big dollars on ads like that! It had something like four pages of pictures, some feedbacks from customers, breeder's notes and so forth.