Welbars - Breed thread and discussion

[Dazed and Confused]

Not sure why I assumed you were in the US, just used to participating mostly in groups with local people. Welbars are better represented in the UK. AFAIK, no one successfully imported them to the US, I recreated my line about 5 years ago. A well known importer, who brought Cream Legbars to the US, tried to import Welbars, but could not get them to be correctly autosexing because they were using single barred cockerels and could not see that (though it was obvious from the few pics they posted).

Fortunately, Welbars are the easiest of all common autosexing breeds to outcross but keep pure. Because they are (genetically) simply a Crele Welsummer (Partridge + sex-lined barring), all you need is a single Welbar cockerel to create your own line from Welsummers. I do this regularly to bring in traits I want. Get some Welsummer pullets from a good line (show type, dark eggs, etc). The better the line of Welsummers, the better your Welbars will get. Put your Welbar cockerel with those pullets and hatch a bunch of chicks. The F1's are not autosexing, so you will need to raise them a few weeks before you can cull the cockerels. All the F1 pullets are pure Welbars, with half their genes from those Welsummer pullets. Breed them back to their father and all chicks are autosexing! You can continue to do that outcross with any line of Welsummers that you wish, just remember, bad traits are as heritable as good ones.

Thats great info, thanks. Having slept on it for the night, I kept thinking about the silver welbar, and came up with a hundred questions about how you get there... (working from building the breed from scratch)

I know that the Barred Rock carries a silver gene, which would most likely (if not definitely) be passed on to the F1 Cockerel along with the baring gene.

At F2, i expect it gets a bit more complex, where you now need to identify (and have enough growers) a Cock and Pullet that are both barred and carrying a dominant silver gene... I assume then that the F3 Welbars will be silver topped like the one in your photo?

or am I overcomplicating? could you just use silver duckwing Welsummers during the first and second breeding to lock in the silver trait?

 

[dheltzel]

Thats great info, thanks. Having slept on it for the night, I kept thinking about the silver welbar, and came up with a hundred questions about how you get there... (working from building the breed from scratch)

I know that the Barred Rock carries a silver gene, which would most likely (if not definitely) be passed on to the F1 Cockerel along with the baring gene.

At F2, i expect it gets a bit more complex, where you now need to identify (and have enough growers) a Cock and Pullet that are both barred and carrying a dominant silver gene... I assume then that the F3 Welbars will be silver topped like the one in your photo?

or am I overcomplicating? could you just use silver duckwing Welsummers during the first and second breeding to lock in the silver trait?

Yes, silver duckwing welsummers can get you silver welbars. The main issue is that silver/gold is sexlinked, as is the barring.
Put a silver cock over gold welbar pullets. Save an F1 cockerel, is will be heterozyygous for silver and single barred.
Put that cockerel over gold welbar pullets and look for a double barred silver chick (male because it is double barred). Half the chicks will be silver and half the males will be double barred, so you will need to hatch a fair number of chicks to get this cockerel, as statistically only 1/8 will have this combination.
Once you have that elusive double barred silver cockerel (his is still carrying gold, only het for silver), put him over gold welbar pullets. All the resulting chicks are full welbars and fully autosexing. Half will be silver, the rest gold. The silver pullets are true breeding silver welbars, but the silver males are het for gold, like their father. I breed all the time this way, producing both silver and gold chicks for sale and to keep as breeders. Getting a true-breeding silver cockerel takes more work, and for me, is not worth the effort, but I can explain how to go about that if that is your goal.

 

[Silkie2299781]

This could have already been asked, but anyway:

Do they make good mommas? I have on sitting on eggs, wondering if I should move them to my other hen ( Black australorp )

Thanks!

 

[Extravaganzoid]

Anyone know where I can get a couple of welbar point of lay chicken. I live near Bristol. Robert

 

[Iluveggers]

Ideal Poultry will have this breed next year! I may have to order one if we get more chicks…trying to convince hub we can hook up the small coop to the run & get a few more birds…lol!

 

[dheltzel]

Ideal Poultry will have this breed next year! I may have to order one if we get more chicks…trying to convince hub we can hook up the small coop to the run & get a few more birds…lol!

Privett has listed them for a few years now. Not sure where the stock originated for Ideal or Privett, but Hoover bought stock from me this past summer. IDK if they will offer them in 2024 or if they need to grow out a larger flock first.
It is pretty straightforward to develop an autosexing bird that looks like a Welbar, but getting the egg color dark is a lot trickier. Even normal Welsummers have this issue, different lines of Welsummers can produce very different egg colors. I have been trying for years to establish small breeders of Welbars who will pay attention to egg color and the Welsummer SOP to make quality birds available in more localities.
If anyone wants to be a breeder of Welbars (or Legbars) contact me in the spring and I can get you some quality stock to breed. http://welbars.com/index.php/welbars/gold-welbar/

 

[Green_Mountain_River]

Today we stopped at the farm store on whim, and without any notification of chicks having arrived. Our instincts were spot-on and they had day-old Welbar chicks! I had never heard of them before but their egg color was what we were seeking and they seem to have a fun pattern and coloring that will stand out in our flock.

One question I have though is whether it is still the case that all-yellows are cockerals? I picked that one because it was different and it seemed to be very "aware," I look for intelligence or at least invent some method to my chick-choosing.
The other two have the obvious stripe, one with more "blue" or "darker" in the shoulders, and the other a bit more "red" in the shoulders. And then, the yellow one!

We do not currently have a rooster, and our lovely neighbors would rather not have the crowing. I know this is their natural behavior, but are there any humane methods of mitigating the crowing? (If not, we will have to "do something" with the rooster..) but for now, we will just enjoy the Welbars and see what comes of the yellow one... perhaps she is just another variety that got mixed in on accident.

We will be attempting to sneak these 3 chicks under a broody hen tonight when it is dark. She has been intensely broody for weeks, and after reading about sucess with this method if the chicks are extremely young, we have been eagerly watching for arrival of chicks to try this out!

Has anyone here had success with this? Any tips/tricks? What about after momma hen accepts the chicks, advice ?

Thank you and we are excited about these Welbars.