The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[faykokoWV]

Just found this thread! We have on wellsummer and love her! Most of our chickens have started laying and I am not sure if she has yet. I found an egg in the nesting box that was a bit darker that the others and had a lot of dark speckles on it. I noticed all the different colors of eggs in your avatar picture and thought I might ask you what a wellsummer egg looks like when they first start laying?

there are many welsummers that lay speckled eggs, they will be a lighter brown with spots the color of the eggs in my avatar. Some people prefer the speckled some prefer solid, but Welsummers lay both types. Some will start out speckled and then they start laying solid, and some go the other way. Think of the coloring like an ink jet sprayer that blasts the eggs as they come out.

 

[EweSheep]

It looks all girls to me............

OK, got some good closeups this morning; I'm thinking I might have 2 girls and 2 boys based on that V/eyeliner thing. What do ya'll think?

The V on this one isn't as pointed as the others, but the eyeliner is very distinct.


Not sure on this one, the V is distinct but the eyeline is broken, Roo?


Pretty sure this ones a girl by this method


Again, distinct, pointed V but broken eyeline. Roo?

 

[maryhysong]

It looks all girls to me............

Ooooh that would be way cool! I hatched this late so I'd have new girls laying next spring in time for our farmer's market; I have gotten used to banty eggs so the size of the humongous Welsummer eggs was a delightful surprise;

Now of course I have the hatching bug and since I"ve got these four to tend to any way, a few more won't hurt, right? SO, I"m looking for hatching eggs, Welsummer and Black Copper Marans. I have messaged a couple people here on BYC but no one has responded, so don't know if the messaging system isn't working or what. Anyone here have any for sale?

 

[EweSheep]

Many of our Welsummers are taking time off from laying........mine are molting and no one is laying except two Spitzhaubens.........

Maybe around Feb or so we should be up and running with hatching eggs. I have no roo, so it would be a challenge in finding one.

 

[maryhysong]

OK, hoping you folks can help me out here. I am very new to Welsummers and I'm trying to understand what they are *supposed* to look like according to the SOP.

I was given 3 old hens, 4-5 years old and I'm trying to figure out which one might be the most correct.
These first two pics are of hen one.





These next two are of hen two.





And here is hen three.




My first question is which one has the most correct neck feathering? Seems like I see pics of Welsummers with both these variations of the black and yellow/gold feathers on their necks. I will say that hen number three has an odd comb, it's like the back end of it is doubled back and attached to her head instead of staying straight and sticking up like the others. She also has white earlobes, I'm thinking this is a DQ? She is also the smallest and flightiest of the three hens; had a very hard time getting good pics of her as she wanted nothing to do with the camera. I appreciate any and all comments, even if you tell me to cull the whole lot! But please tell me why so I can learn to judge the birds on my own, thanks.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Mary - try contacting Wynette for BCM's. Most of my birds are molting right now - I only have 2 laying. I have a couple of pullets that should start up in the next month or so though.


As for your pictures - Yes, white in the earlobes is a DQ. I'm by no means an expert, but here's what I see:

Hen #3 - I would not use her breeding. She has side sprigs on her comb. Also, wellies aren't supposed to have a leghorn type comb that flops over. Plus, white in the earlobes.

Hen #1 - I would not use for breeding because her comb is too large. She also has too much black in her hackle feathers IMO.

 

[maryhysong]

HappyChooks, thank you; I kind of figured I didn't want to use #3 because of her small size, funny comb and white earlobs (3 strikes you're out!) Will just keep her for eggs as long as she'll lay. (these guys were someones pets so I would feel kind of bad eating them... especially Vinnie the rooster, apparently they liked going out and picking him up and petting him)

At the moment I should have maybe 6 Welsummer eggs coming next week from Cowgirl75446, but will also check with Wynette, thanks.

I have 4 young girls out of these hens with Vinnie, MAYBE. The problem is there was a very active and aggressive Americauna roo running with them for a bit while they looked for a new home for him. My friend that gave them to me thought that because he was beating up on Vinnie, he probably mated with the hens too. I'm not familiar enough with the Am's to be sure. The girls are beginning to get their adult feathering so I will post some pics of them when I can get some good ones. Of course if they lay olive eggs I will be certain ;-)

The basic plan is to use the best old hen, and it sounds like #2 is it and breed to a new roo. If the young girls look pure, then pick the best one from that group and also breed to the new roo and of course breed from a new roo and new hens. That would give me three groups of youngsters to grow out and choose from.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

Hi folks, I believe I've posted in this thread before, but it's been a while.

We live in the city, can't keep any roosters, just have an urban flock of five hens we and our roommates started out with as chicks in late summer last year. Our favorite hen is a Welsummer, Salma (see my profile pic), and she was attacked by a raccoon at midnight on Friday night because our flock had gotten into the habit of roosting in a big pine tree, which they started doing almost a year ago (did not have any problems with it till now). Their coop was inadequate and they flat-out rejected it. It's a long story, but it wasn't built by me and my boyfriend and we did not have money to expand on it, plus there were a lot of stressful things going on in our lives, and I'm sad to say that for their first year, the flock were well-fed but otherwise perhaps a bit neglected.

We are changing that now.

When the attack happened, after the raccoon was chased off by our neighbor, my boyfriend spent the rest of the night in the yard under the pine tree to guard against the raccoon returning. Salma was placed inside in a dog crate; she had a small cut above her eye which was cleaned with an antiseptic solution, and was shaken up but seemed OK. I actually live across town in an apartment, but I spend a fair amount of time at my boyfriend's house where the flock is. The next morning I came straight over to look after Salma while my boyfriend started working on the coop to make it larger and more hospitable. No way we were going to let them keep roosting in the tree now that the raccoon knows where they are. Turns out Salma was worse than I had feared. She was missing at least half of her tail feathers, plus a couple of other patches were missing. Her eye was oozing. What worried me most was how lethargic she was and that she wasn't eating. We have no money for a vet or even to buy her some medicine at the feed store, but our next-door neighbors who also keep chickens (and who kindly came over into our yard and chased off that raccoon) had a two-year-old round of Baytril antibiotic pills they gave us, so I decided it was probably better to give her those than nothing at all, so she's still on those pills. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday rinsing her eye with saline and force-feeding her as much as I could, and although her eye was improving, she was deteriorating. I figured she must have had some internal injuries. On Sunday night we solemnly started discussing the most humane way to cull her, but we weren't ready to give up yet even though it was becoming increasingly difficult to make her eat. She couldn't even stay awake for more than about 10 seconds. Then later that same night my boyfriend had the idea of giving her some sugar water with the syringe. We got a few good drops in her and about five minutes later, she actually started struggling and trying to escape the towel we had her wrapped in! Bingo! So we got as much yogurt, egg, and more sugar in her as we could while she had that little burst of energy, and that was the turning point. By yesterday afternoon she was eating a TON on her own and we started seeing glimpses of her flighty old self. I have scarcely ever felt so relieved in my life! I don't know what her vision will ultimately be like in that eye, but I'm almost positive now that she's going to be OK.

The flock had to spend Saturday and Sunday night in the crappy little non-ventilated coop, unfortunately, but my boyfriend finished the expansion yesterday. We already had plans to build them a big, giant hen palace to replace the old coop, and he was in the process of breaking down a bunch of free pallets for that purpose. So, fortunately he had the lumber around, and he just needed to recover from his sleepless night in the yard then do all the work for the expansion. We are still going to build the palace coop soon, but we wanted something that was acceptable for the time being, since they can no longer roost in the tree. It's not terribly pretty, but it's definitely secure and I think it's perfectly adequate considering that they free-range all day every day. The original coop was the A-frame on the left. The right side of the A-frame was a hatch, which has now been converted to a new roof. There is a roosting branch in the tall part that is difficult to see in the pic. The wall on the right is just a pallet which is going to be easily removed with wing nuts once my BF gets around to putting them on. Now we can take all the time we need to build the pretty palace!





Anyway, I just wanted to share Salma's story with all you Wellie fans. I hope that Salma will soon return to her old self. She is normally our most friendly bird, the only one who will come up and greet us even when we don't have food. She had not been handled since the day she came out of the brooder and would seldom tolerate being touched at all. Maybe all this handling and hand-feeding will make her even more friendly, maybe? I wouldn't be surprised if she starts laying again soon, though I also wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't lay again until spring. I'm a newbie to all this, so I really have no idea. Either way, I'm just so glad she's doing better.

 

[EweSheep]

Marysong, if it was me, I would have cull out the whole lot and start over again......... too many DQ and faults on all three but the second hen is better than those two, pet wise LOL!

At least you will get back on track.......


Urban, glad you are back. Happy Salma made it.......coons are not easy deterred when there is an easy meal out there.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

Wrong thread.