The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[pinkchick]

Happy Mother's Day Moms!!!!!!!

 

[beesong]

Keep 'em crossed, folks -- there's actually a pip this morning.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
Go chickies!

Happy Mother's Day!

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:

Ohhhh Happy Day!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[faykokoWV]

Quote:
Ewesheep, I know it would be a lot of work, but is this something you could add to the Welsummer club webpage?? I know you already have the picture of my poor example with the hatchery welsummer roo I used to have on the club page. If others sent you photos would it be easy to add them?

I wish I can do that but not very many people submit p hotographs of their "poor" Welsummers.

Just so no one is a afraid of getting black balled for having poor stock, Ewesheep put my pictures of a bad example up, but did not identify it as one of mine. I don't mind letting it be known because

1. I have better stock now
2. When I was selling eggs from the poor stock I made it known that my birds were from hatchery stock.

I am totally with vanalpaca- if we can see positive and negative traits side by side it make it much easier to evaluate the birds that we have and improve our stock.

 

[faykokoWV]

Quote:

 

[Captain Carrot]

hello all. Here is a couple of pics from my Welsummer bantam cockerel.

Here he is at 12 weeks old

And today at 17 weeks old

His eyes are a nice rich bay colour, looks very light in the pics though. He's got a couple of little white flecks on his head, but hopefully he'll loose them.

Any ideas when bantams start laying?

 

[tazcat70]

When I get on my home computer again, I will post pics of my Wellies. I only have one hen left. But feel free to use the pics to show good or bad. How else are we gonna learn?

If anyone wants to buy the pics I am accepting offers of hatching eggs.

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
Its weird, the coloring which it is not so vivid like my German bantams pictured below. I hope he does lose those white tips. He does look like he got some kind of barred pattern going on his chest feathers and some V's going on, which it should never happen in true Welsummer bantams. Either someone had been using the grandparents as crosses or great grandparents....some of that barred and lacings would pop up on throwbacks when there are some questionable ancestry going on. If that is all you have to work with, cull all of the offsprings that have that trait and keep the better cockerals to take over their father's duties.

This rooster was about eight months old in the picture. His hackles are much more golden.

This one at four months old

This one at 3 months old

This one at 2 months old

See the colorings, you can tell right off the yellow hackles and the roo chests. Never had any white featherings or markings of any kind on both Dutch and Germans.

Good luck, it is NOT easy to find bantams of high quality and we still have some work to do.

 

[Wildflower_VA]

I have been watching this thread for a while, but was hesitant to post because I don't intend to show Welsummers or breed them for any purpose other than my own flock for replacement hens and roosters. BUT--I do want the beautiful Welsummer rooster which graced the Kellogg Cornflake box of my childhood, and I am reading that hatchery chicks are a poor examples. I don't want inferior chicks, even if I don't want to show them. What is a person like me to do? I will have a mixed flock of black Australorp, barred rock, buff orpington and Welsummers. My intentions are to keep about 10 total Welsummers.

I have had a hard enough time even finding a hatchery that carries Welsummers, much less finding someone who hatches 'good stock' locally. I am a member of Shenandoah Valley Poultry and Garden Club, organized by Pat Foreman, author of Chicken Tractor (with husband Andy Lee) and City Chicks and other poultry books, and we have many breeders in our club, but none breed Welsummers. Pat is retired now and only keeps a few heritage breed chickens, and none of them are Welsummers.

I am open to suggestion. Until reading this thread, I had intended on ordering from Estes Hatchery in the next couple of weeks. What are my options?