The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[Happy Chooks]

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.

She was in shock. You can also crush 1/4 aspirin in 1 cup water for pain. Get some vitamins in the water too - either poultry vitamins and electrolytes or Polyvisol NO IRON.

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!

I would too, but I didn't want to give her a heart attack by being critical of all the birds. Great advise from faykokowv as well.

Walt is doing the SOP on the our member's birds posted on there. There are some feedbacks going on in there. We are trying to get the SOP set up in the real pictures....drawings by Jacky isn't the BEST eye you can get....its too perfect and too many of us would try too hard getting there and get frustrated by comparing THAT drawing example. If we can get more pictures of the actual Welsummer, it would be good and bounce feedbacks back and forth with Walt.

Also those birds would be used for the WCNA emblem sticker....its still in the infancy stages and it will take some work getting all modified and have our members choose and pick things out of the random order. I will see about patches as well.

Goodness, we certainly have come a long ways!

I swore I'd NEVER sign up for facebook................................but I'm signing up now so I can see what's happenin'.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Okay I found you guys on Facebook, but it says the group is locked. How do I get in?

 

[maryhysong]

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!

Quote Happy Chickes "I would too, but I didn't want to give her a heart attack by being critical of all the birds. Great advise from faykokowv as well."

No I wouldn't have a heart attack and I knew they weren't the best looking birds in the world when I posted. I posted them to learn because I'm new to this breed and new to the SOP for chickens. I especially appreciate the time that folks have taken to post photos and comments to show me what to look out for, both good and bad. I am always open to *constructive* criticism; if you don't tell me whats wrong with them how will I ever learn to pick out and breed the good ones. ;-)

 

[maryhysong]

Okay I found you guys on Facebook, but it says the group is locked. How do I get in?

It's a closed group, meaning you have to wait for an admin to approve you. look right below the line of pics at the top of the page, on the right is a 'join group' button. click it to send a join request. Some pages take a day or two to approve you, just depending on how busy the admin is.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I got approved, thanks.

 

[mrheinz77]

Brown leghorn and Welsummer side by side. This is the pullet that mentioned a few months ago that took Champion Continental at the Putnam County fair. (Pictures used with permission of Little Ameraucana Mom)

 

[Outrun Acres]

Here is a headshot of my pullet. We love her and the eggs she has just started laying .

 

[maryhysong]

Brown leghorn and Welsummer side by side. This is the pullet that mentioned a few months ago that took Champion Continental at the Putnam County fair. (Pictures used with permission of Little Ameraucana Mom)

Thank you very much! This really does help. So major differences I see are white earlobe and the Leghorn looks smaller. Also the black on the neck hackles is different but I'm having a hard time seeing the exact pattern on the Leghorn.

 

[Tailfeathers]

Well, last night I finally got caught up on this thread. It's been way too long since I've been here. Took me awhile but I did it. Then I tried to post a few comments on things I had seen and upload a few chick pics that would help show the difference between male and female chicks. Unfortunately, when I did, everything froze up and I lost the whole post. So I tried again tonight and the same thing happened.

So, the next time someone is looking for a visual reference on how to tell the sex of Wellie chicks, I'll try posting them again. For now, here are a couple of comments that I can remember from what I've read thus far.

First, someone mentioned that a bird pictured could not be the result of a cross between an Ameraucana and a Welsummer because it would've had legs that were darker if that were the case. Just wanted to say that's not true because I cross Ameraucanas with Welsummers all the time and, while it would take way too long to detail all the different results that I've seen, suffice it for now to say I've had birds that looked just like Welsummers with beards. The beards are not muffs but rather look like feathers that someone hacked off with scissors but it's there nonetheless. And, more to the point of this post, the legs were either pale whitish or even yellow. I've also had them with blue legs.

Second, Diane showed a pic of one of what she calls her "bad birds" for an example of what not to have. I would agree with everything she said except the comment about the hackles being too orange. This is personal preference as the SOP does allow for some variation. The SOP calls for a female's hackle to be "golden brown or copper, the lower feathers with black striping and golden shaft." Personally, I prefer the darker "orange" color or copper (look at a penny) than the "golden brown". In fact, most of the Welsummers IMO are far to "yellowish" and I have intentionally bred my birds toward the former and away from the latter as one of the traits in my birds to distinguish my lines from others.

That's all I can remember for now. I was gonna say with the pics that I wanted to post, that unfortunately I had some personal stuff that came up this year which prevented me from making the photo album of my Welsummers which would chronicle chicks from Day Olds through one-year old. I did manage to get Day Olds, One week olds, and two week olds though.

God Bless,

Royce

 

[CluckyCharms]

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?

I'm a newbie to everything remotely related to chicken and even moreso when it comes to specific breeds. However - I'm going to guess too, because it's fun and I can!

1 Roo
2 Roo
3 Pullet
4 Roo

Whatever their gender - they are so cute.