Royce you do have a point there!
Opa bought his stock from Estes Hatchery, probably in the first year they had the flock from Harry Shaw. So therefore, his stock came from Calicowoods and I believe he has not crossed them with anything else. Pretty much a closed flock. From what I see in Calicowoods lines, the offsprings are not consisent with Estes Hatchery after the second year they had them. Obviously Estes didn't do their "homework" in culling and therefore I am seeing more and more flaws in Estes stock now than they did in the first and second year when they owned the original stock. That is why I shied away from Estes now, more so than ever.
I sure do love my Calicowoods hen, she was directly from his line, her parents are original stock from Harry Shaw and you could see the consisency in all of her siblings she had when I bought her. Wished I had bought MORE of her sisters. But shipping was a premium for a heavy hen LOL!
When I feel my stock produced consisently with no or very little flaws, I would be happy to call them out of my line. It may take two or more generation to get that far but some breeders hit a gold mine at the first generation with two different lines, combine them to do your line. You can be proud of what you have accomplished so far with your stock and call it your very own Royce VanBlaricome lines. If someone ask what are your bird's lines originated to start with, then you would say Erhard's or make some pedigree which it would be very interesting. Some nick works very well with certain lines. Others, not so much. What I do know if you cross a hatchery line with breeders lines, too many screwed factors would pop up and it would make a real mess culling out for many generations to come.
I've been hearing thru the grapevine that Ideal Hatchery's Welsummers were probably "next to the original Lowell Barber" birds (meaning the stock came from the original parents/flock from Lowell Barber) but look what the hatchery did.....they didn't cull them and now having less than desirable Welsummers from that line. Would one suggested to USE Ideal's Hatchery for getting pure Barber birds or "renew" the lines? Certainly not! There are two maybe three breeders that has the PURE Lowell Barber birds even they could have said it is my line but they chose NOT to.
It does get confusing, including me, when it comes to nick, strain, lines, etc. and if one take the time to stop and think, it makes sense. Almost like reading an Arabian pedigree, which they do have strains and lines and which lines work best. I think personally breeders should maintain ONE PURE (breeder's name) and the other flock would be of the crossing of lines that the present breeder is aiming for.
If we really want to know if this person we bought the birds from is from the original breeder, like for example, if I buy a flock that said to be yours, the Royce VanBlaricome lines, you can be certain I would be flagging you down for information IF you had sold hatching eggs or chicks to this person I am buying the flock from. If you said yes, you did sold the eggs/chicks to this breeder then the information is solid. If one went and bought a flock from someone else, that bought it from someone else and down the line, you would certainly question, particuarly when Mr Barber is long deceased. That is a very difficult thing to prove if the stock is directly FROM Mr Barber. We all know he didn't really sell a whole lot unlike Bjorn, which it really is another story, and we both know that Laurie and Nina were the only two that HAS the original stock from Mr Barber.
There are several breeders in there that don't remember where they got their stock from...I find it hard to understand unless they are very elderly which it is understandable. Either they had something inferior going on, thus got out of them, or got original stock from hatchery, or changed breeds because Marans are better sellers than Welsummers. Who really knows? Like Bjorn, he knew of the risk when he got hatchery Welsummers but it was a big price he paid for his mistake. No breeder is perfect and allowed mistakes, cull out the mistakes and start over again, despite of the money, sweat, blood and tears putting into his investiment.
Yep, its been a long time since Harry Shaw passed on so unless someone has the original flock, Calicowoods would be going down in history of the Whos Who list. But he did made some impact on the Welsummers even he didn't have them as long as most of us have been doing. Im not sure how to call Estes Hatchery's Welsummers, their stock did originate from Calicowoods but I think we all can say Estes have developed their OWN line, roughly three years ago when I started seeing flaws and faults. Recently a guy did email me, showing me a pic of the yearling cockeral and I was NOT pleased with the quality...looked NOTHING like the original Calicowoods, the colors were too light (remember Whitmore roo, that lacked the black breast in the website picture), that is what that roo is looking like and I told this guy, he needs to cull him out because the colors were wrong, as well as the leg color which showed MORE whiter than yellow, Andalusian/Leghorn combs and wattles, just plain awful. Someone needs to do some REAL serious culling with Estes stock. Even Harry himself would not let that happen, he was pretty ruthless when he sees a flaw (even a white feather popping up now and then) the bird is GONE out of his breeding flock. I wished I had copied his Welsummer pictures but his website is no longer there anymore. Darn!
I don't know how long Opa has had his flock but we can certainly say Opa lines now.
I love to put pedigrees on our Welsummers! Yeah, crazy, huh?
Opa bought his stock from Estes Hatchery, probably in the first year they had the flock from Harry Shaw. So therefore, his stock came from Calicowoods and I believe he has not crossed them with anything else. Pretty much a closed flock. From what I see in Calicowoods lines, the offsprings are not consisent with Estes Hatchery after the second year they had them. Obviously Estes didn't do their "homework" in culling and therefore I am seeing more and more flaws in Estes stock now than they did in the first and second year when they owned the original stock. That is why I shied away from Estes now, more so than ever.
I sure do love my Calicowoods hen, she was directly from his line, her parents are original stock from Harry Shaw and you could see the consisency in all of her siblings she had when I bought her. Wished I had bought MORE of her sisters. But shipping was a premium for a heavy hen LOL!
When I feel my stock produced consisently with no or very little flaws, I would be happy to call them out of my line. It may take two or more generation to get that far but some breeders hit a gold mine at the first generation with two different lines, combine them to do your line. You can be proud of what you have accomplished so far with your stock and call it your very own Royce VanBlaricome lines. If someone ask what are your bird's lines originated to start with, then you would say Erhard's or make some pedigree which it would be very interesting. Some nick works very well with certain lines. Others, not so much. What I do know if you cross a hatchery line with breeders lines, too many screwed factors would pop up and it would make a real mess culling out for many generations to come.
I've been hearing thru the grapevine that Ideal Hatchery's Welsummers were probably "next to the original Lowell Barber" birds (meaning the stock came from the original parents/flock from Lowell Barber) but look what the hatchery did.....they didn't cull them and now having less than desirable Welsummers from that line. Would one suggested to USE Ideal's Hatchery for getting pure Barber birds or "renew" the lines? Certainly not! There are two maybe three breeders that has the PURE Lowell Barber birds even they could have said it is my line but they chose NOT to.
It does get confusing, including me, when it comes to nick, strain, lines, etc. and if one take the time to stop and think, it makes sense. Almost like reading an Arabian pedigree, which they do have strains and lines and which lines work best. I think personally breeders should maintain ONE PURE (breeder's name) and the other flock would be of the crossing of lines that the present breeder is aiming for.
If we really want to know if this person we bought the birds from is from the original breeder, like for example, if I buy a flock that said to be yours, the Royce VanBlaricome lines, you can be certain I would be flagging you down for information IF you had sold hatching eggs or chicks to this person I am buying the flock from. If you said yes, you did sold the eggs/chicks to this breeder then the information is solid. If one went and bought a flock from someone else, that bought it from someone else and down the line, you would certainly question, particuarly when Mr Barber is long deceased. That is a very difficult thing to prove if the stock is directly FROM Mr Barber. We all know he didn't really sell a whole lot unlike Bjorn, which it really is another story, and we both know that Laurie and Nina were the only two that HAS the original stock from Mr Barber.
There are several breeders in there that don't remember where they got their stock from...I find it hard to understand unless they are very elderly which it is understandable. Either they had something inferior going on, thus got out of them, or got original stock from hatchery, or changed breeds because Marans are better sellers than Welsummers. Who really knows? Like Bjorn, he knew of the risk when he got hatchery Welsummers but it was a big price he paid for his mistake. No breeder is perfect and allowed mistakes, cull out the mistakes and start over again, despite of the money, sweat, blood and tears putting into his investiment.
Yep, its been a long time since Harry Shaw passed on so unless someone has the original flock, Calicowoods would be going down in history of the Whos Who list. But he did made some impact on the Welsummers even he didn't have them as long as most of us have been doing. Im not sure how to call Estes Hatchery's Welsummers, their stock did originate from Calicowoods but I think we all can say Estes have developed their OWN line, roughly three years ago when I started seeing flaws and faults. Recently a guy did email me, showing me a pic of the yearling cockeral and I was NOT pleased with the quality...looked NOTHING like the original Calicowoods, the colors were too light (remember Whitmore roo, that lacked the black breast in the website picture), that is what that roo is looking like and I told this guy, he needs to cull him out because the colors were wrong, as well as the leg color which showed MORE whiter than yellow, Andalusian/Leghorn combs and wattles, just plain awful. Someone needs to do some REAL serious culling with Estes stock. Even Harry himself would not let that happen, he was pretty ruthless when he sees a flaw (even a white feather popping up now and then) the bird is GONE out of his breeding flock. I wished I had copied his Welsummer pictures but his website is no longer there anymore. Darn!
I don't know how long Opa has had his flock but we can certainly say Opa lines now.
I love to put pedigrees on our Welsummers! Yeah, crazy, huh?
