The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[Happy Chooks]

Okay, I double checked and here's what I found:

From the WCNA website http://wcna.webs.com/history.htm :

Harry Shaw, Jr. of Calicowoods Farms, MO, his stock came from Lowell Barber. After Shaw's untimely death, Estes Hatchery of MO bought ALL of his Welsummer flock. It has been several years and uncertain of the quality of the chicks and egg color. I certainly hope that they still maintain the lines than is to pollute the lines with some hatchery bred Welsummers.​

 

[vanalpaca]

Wildflower,

It's easy to get confused. The CalicoWoods stock originated as Lowell Barber Stock. So Mr Shaw of CalicoWoods got Lowell Barber stock and worked with it for a few years, culling hard, etc and developed their own strain. Then when Mr. Shaw passed, Estes Hatchery bought his whole flock of Welsummers (the CalicoWoods strain).

So Opa got his stock during that first year that Estes had the original birds and the quality was still tops. Opa has stated that he still has good results ordering birds in from Estes, but he knows how to cull to the standard.

If you HAVE to order from a hatchery because none of the breeders can do Welsummer chicks for you, then Estes would be the best choice to start with because it will be better than what the other hatcheries have for base stock.

Some of the other hatcheries have stock that is popping out BLONDE and WHITE chicks in their Welsummers, which should be culled and never bred for breeder stock.

I have a blonde chick from hatching eggs from stock sourced through a couple of breeders and it turns out to be very likely those birds lines originated from Ideal Hatchery stock. About 1% blonde chicks. So maybe 1 chick out of every hundred would be a blonde cull. That is still workable.

So that is a known fault that we as breeders have to cull for. We cull the blonde chick from the breeding flock. Then we have to figure out which bird threw the blonde chick (the roo or the hen??) and cull THAT bird from the breeding program. Same would go for a white chick. The only acceptable color for a Welsummer is the RED PARTRIDGE coloration in the US (there are a couple variations allowed in Germany as their Red Partridge is different than Holland's Red Partridge and they finally agreed to have it be two colors there).

There are other faults that are popping up in the known breeder lines as well. For instance, in some of the Barber birds, you tend to get occasional birds with feather stubs on the legs or between the toes and those should be culled from the breeding pens.

It looks like there are feathering differences as well now in the Experiment that Eggs are Good just showed us in the pullets. So the bottom line is that the Welsummer is an AWESOME chicken breed and it needs folks that are dedicated to working with it to bring their strains of Wellies up to Show Standard. If you have known faults that you cull for regularly in your birds and you are selling chicks or hatching eggs, then it would be 'friendly' to pass along to the buyer to watch out for those particular faults and cull them and not breed birds that should be culled.

It is the only way that we are going to get the Welsummer to be more consistent to the standard is by working with it. And we need to breed them up because they are still a rare breed.

So did I get that right folks?

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
that makes sense to me, I have a cockeral that feathered in wrong and he will be culled and I hope to start soon testing the parents to see which bird is throwing that.

 

[vanalpaca]

Remember that 'culling' may mean rehoming for the roos or having the hens go into the eating egg laying flock!

 

[Wildflower_VA]

Quote:

Okay, now I understand (slightly). I can see that I will have my work cut out for me when I get my chicks the first week of June. After I catch up on my spring gardening, I'm gonna take a run over to Scottsville and take a look at the LB stock Dave is breeding to see their coloration. I'll take pictures.

 

[EweSheep]

Vanalpaca, you got it right!

Harry Shaw was a very nice guy and from the pictures I remember seeing his flock, they were consisent and they look alike. I was impressed with it but unfortunately I didn't jump the gun alot sooner because I was not interested in Welsummers at that time, only in Marans. He had Cuckoo Marans and I think Black ones too.

When I bought the second generation from the original Calicowoods stock thru Estes Hatchery, you bet I was disappointed but if you need to focus on Barber birds themselves, there ARE two breeders that have the original Barber birds, when Mr Barber gave the flock TO one of them, telling her that she would look after them, raise them up right, cull out HARD on the dark black pencilings that one BYCers flock had in the Grisham birds (IMO, either it is the camera or they are actually too dark of a Welsummer). Then that breeder gave half the flock to her good friend, in case something does happen to her flock, she would have a back up. They have been working on it for about 30 years since Mr Barber passed away. They have NOT ever introduced the new blood ever into their flock. I personally dont think Lowell Barber sold the birds directly to Harry Shaw, but probably indirectly thru another person which I know the two breeders mentioned above, did not sell their stock to them, even Ideal Hatchery or any of them, matter of factly. So who did Harry Shaw GET his Welsummers from? We can assumed that he may have gotten them from a friend of Lowell Barber or someone sold him Barber flock to him. Many times I wished Harry was still alive today but he died what he had loved doing, caring for his chickens.

When we all say to "cull" we don't mean to kill, but to sell or put a rejected Welsummer in a non breeding standard flock (like making some Olive Eggers, or egg laying flock only). We dont want to have any blond chicks. If a breeder has too many of those blond chicks popping out, he needs to go and find that source that is causing those blond chicks to come out. If it was me producing blond chicks, I would cull out the whole flock and start again.

I got a written documentation that Lowell Barber DID NOT sell his flock to Channing Grisham so we have NO idea where Grisham got his stock from. Probably from Bjorn Netland if anything.

As for Fugate, we do not know for sure if he ever had Welsummers but he was a very good friend of Lowell Barber. Mr Fugate was more into Marans than anything else. If anyone mentioned Fugate for Welsummers, play caution until we know for sure.


Hope this information helps! I will keep updating as much as I can and when I do get responses. Sometimes stories from different breeders don't always add up but it is nice to find out the who's who in our Welsummer history.

 

[Wildflower_VA]

Quote:
Thanks for this info. I have a lot to learn. I'm pretty sure my breeder has been culling to improve his stock. In his e-mails, he seems dedicated to preserving the Lowell Barber lines.

 

[harryof47]

Quote:
This is great info to know and learn from. All the pictures and comments are also very helpful. Thanks to all
Blessings

Harold

 

[pinkchick]

Quote:
Steve~ She is looking great! Are they both colored this darker color? I love this darker coloration...upon maturity she should have very nice rich colors. Can't wait to see them all grown up and laying. Very curious as to what you are going to get for egg color too. Thanks for sharing them!

 

[pinkchick]

Happy Chooks~

I miss you guys and gals too! I'm sorry I haven't been around that much lately, just been busy and it seems like the most of my time here on BYC is trying to stay caught up with the very fast paced Marans thread.

Wellie news here at my house.....I am growing out one pullet and 2 roos, they are 4 months old. The pullet is looking good and she is big just like her father. #95 a cockerel is HUGE, he is bigger than all of my hens..and man o man this boy is all leg. He has 5 points too so this is a good thing compared to Odin's nasty comb. The other cockerel is a tad smaller than #95, but is coloring out the same and also has 5 points. I am very excited about the combs because as you know that is something I have been working on.
If the larger boy, #95 turns out like anything close to his dad by way of personality and temperment, it will be heaven. Pretty soon though I think that it will be time to toss in some new blood....so let me know when you have any of those Moose eggs ready to go. You know I love that rooster.

Ohhhhh, I think I also eliminated the feather stubs once and for all

, so hoping it can be crossed of my list for good. Baby steps, one thing at a time, right?