The Welsummer Thread!!!!

[ChikieLyn]

OK, I've been pretty quiet and behaving myself lately. Never did post a photo of my two Wellie pullets - never got a good one. I did get kind of a fun one today, at 25 weeks of age, both basking in the sun. Between lousy light and a lousy back, I haven't had much fun with a camera lately.

 

[Engteacher]

Last winter our welsummers shut down egg production in early November, and we didn't get another egg until March. Since our 4H-er in the family is desperate to bring this breed to the fair as developed as possible, we'd like to hatch some eggs as close to January 1st as possible. We will need to put artificial light in the coop to keep them laying through late fall and early winter in order to have eggs or the incubator. Have any of you had success keeping your welsummers laying through the winter with light? Can you give us some tips?

Thanks!

 

[EweSheep]

Well I don't because egg laying year round would shorten their lives and I would just do what nature intend to do. I don't want to burn out my hens.

 

[Engteacher]

I understand, and we haven't put lights on our flock before. The problem is that in order to enter birds in the county fair for 4H, the hatch date must be as close to January 1st as possible in order to get the most mature bird. When we don't get eggs out of our flock in early winter, we have a big problem. Luckily, we were able to order some from Erhart Weiss in February, but we lost two months of growth time. I want to avoid that problem this year, so I need to light them up until mid-December in order to get hatching eggs out of our own flock.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
we are in the same boat as you with the kids needing the chicks as close to Jan 1 as possible. We did light our coop enough to give them the needed light and decreased the light early at the begining of the year so they could get back into a cycle and also molt out before the fair. We had a timer set so the light came on and turned off as programmed.

 

[Opa]

I have lights in my coop on a timer so that the birds receive 14 hours of light year round. I don't experience a noticeable drop in egg production. Since a chicken is only going to give a certain number of eggs in her lifetime I perfer to harvest them in the most economical period of time.

 

[Engteacher]

You must have day lengths like we do here in Minnesota. Were you able to keep them laying into December? How many hours of light did you give them? I was thinking to set it so light begins at 4:30 AM and then turn off the light at 8 AM and let twilight happen normally. Sunset is at 4:45 in November so I hope that would be enough. Any words of wisdom?

 

[Engteacher]

Quote:
So maybe I'd need to keep lights on in the evening, too. Otherwise, I'd only have 12 hours of light per day. I mean, last year I didn't see a single egg from November to March. I expected them to slow down, but didn't anticipate a complete halt in production. Javas and Australorps continued all through the winter, so we had eggs but just not from the breed we preferred for the fair.

 

[Opa]

I have the time set to turn on at 5am and off at 8pm. I get eggs year round.

 

[beesong]

Do the no-no feather stubs that sometimes show up on cockerels ever appear on the pullets? I've culled a cockerel with them, and I haven't seen stubs on any of the pullets, so am just curious if I need to keep watching them.