The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[NCSprout]

pinkchick, PM sent.

You are reading correctly. I think you are right on the money.

 

[Opa]

I think a good welsummer pullet should look something like this at 12 weeks

The Welsummer/Barnvelder cross certainly is a interesting looking bird

 

[EweSheep]

Oh I see that once in a blue moon with the Barnvelder/Wellie crosses....good for egg laying but not to use for pure breedings. Lovely girls you got there!

Hens and Roos, I seen that type of roo before and Whitmore Farms have that type of roo in the website.

I've been hearing some breeders actually USE the very red chests to bring out the beauty on their daughters and cull out the sons. I know it beautifies the girls but what would it do to the genetic pool that we are trying to achieve all round Welsummers which a large percentage of black chests? IMO, I would not use him unless I have a mind to cull out ALL boys and keep the girls for egg laying purposes.

 

[EweSheep]

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Beautiful girls! Oooh la la la! I like their type, wide chested and not all gangly either.

 

[vanalpaca]

As the Welsummer Club site is building it's membership, would it be helpful, maybe on the Yahoo Groups site cause they have an area for this, to make up a file or archive of these more common faults that are being found in Welsummer hatches?

I understand that many breeders are new (like myself) and even with asking questions out there, not everyone appears to have pure Welsummers. As this breed is NEWER to the APA standard and has a lot of pollution in the gene pool from unculled, mass produced hatchery stock, would it be good to post a photo album of common problems popping up?

For instance we have the Wellie/Barnie crossed chicks pointed out by PinkChick. We have WHITE chicks and BLONDE chicks. I have had hatching eggs from 4 different egg sellers on BYC involving 5 different breeders here. I am seeing variety in the chicks. But out of 14 eggs, I am only hatching out 2-3 chicks from any group.

Soon I will be getting in more better Wellie stock from BETTER KNOWN sources and I will have those chicks to compare these chicks to.

But for all of you that have already come across discrepancies in hatches amongst the chicks, grown them out, and have seen how those discrepancies then compared to the standard, a photo record may be helpful.

My interest here is NOT to target any egg seller or member of BYC or any hatchery. My interest is simply to accumulate a data file of current discrepancies being found in the breed so that we can all learn what IS a true Welsummer type and what is a cross or old genetic trait popping up.

After all these birds history included several different breeds, including Barnies and Marans if my reading is correct, and even brown leghorns? Those genetics will pop up if enough eggs are hatched out. Also, things like the feather stubs and other traits needing lots of work on this breed.

Here is a 'for instance' of genetic traits appearing in a population. I will use the Cockatiel, which is only found in the wild as a GREY bird with white markings on the wings, Yellow Cheeks and Orange Ear Coverts. Once it was domesticated and bred in an aviary about 100 years ago, an albino bird popped out! Since that bird was born, breeders have worked with the cockatiel and it now comes in a wide variety of colors which are never seen in the wild. This is thought to be because the odd colored bird in the wild would be easily spotted by predators and culled by nature.

So in our Welsummer chickens, even possible with the known originating lines, crossing them may produce undesirable results and those lines themselves produce chicks which need to be culled as not to standard.

I'm interested because besides the BLONDE chick which has popped up in my brooder, I now have a chick with dark gray/black markings in its shoulder feathers. I am color banding to keep all these chicks separated. The blonde chick has grown feathers and it seems more of a reddish brown and solid coloring versus the browner partridge pattern of the other chipmunk chicks. I'll know in a couple weeks how the dark gray/black chick grows in.

But if we have VARIATIONS in our birds and post them here and critique them, it really does help all of us to learn what to look for in our own birds and advice on how to breed to correct the traits are all helpful as we all work together to improve the American Welsummer stock.

Cheers,
Bonnie

 

[vanalpaca]

Opa, thanks for the 12 week pullet photo. It is attaching an age to the picture that also helps put things in perspective. I was wondering about the black feathers in the hackles of one of the photos on this page because I thought that was not to standard. I have yet to see a grown up bird in person and don't quite know what the 'some black allowed in the hackle on the underfeathers' means in the standard.

Anyone got photo files of this chick through 2 or 3 ages to full grown bird that is to type?

I was wondering if the chicks in the bator that are slightly different color to each other will all feather in identical or look different and I'm thinking that they should look different as adults, so I am keeping a photo record.

Keep the teaching photos coming! This is great!

 

[Hens and Roos]

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so given that I had 2 male chicks show this feather pattern, then someone already was using a bird like him to make the daughters more beautiful and the daughters from this type of cross are now carrying and passing on this particular feather pattern gene, which isn't desirable in the Welsummer birds. So I should stick to my original plan of culling him out and test mating the possible 2 hen with the 2 roosters and see what hatches. Now there is also the possiblity that the sisters from Boygle's hatch are carrying this particular feather pattern too so they would need to be tested as well but what about the brother who hatched and shows the correct feather pattern?

All thoughts welcome so we can plan accordingly and work on keeping the gene pool correct.

 

[Opa]

I would cull all cockerels that don't show the desired Welsummer traits.

 

[EweSheep]

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[EweSheep]

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2x and it would be a waste of time, money and sweat to get it up there when the previous true breeders have done the work for you. It takes decades to breed out something you don't want in the flock.