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I was not able to get Welsummers from a breeder as we had discussed. She said she was having fertility problems so I got impatient and decided to try some Welsummers from four different hatcheries. I had often seen that all Welsummers came from Lowell Barber and figured since they all came from him anyway, it shouldnt take much to get some good looking SQ birds. (I later found out that there were actually at least three separate Welsummer lines in the USA. Lowell Barber and his friend have/had Netherlands/UK birds. My breeder and Horst Greczmiel had/have German birds. Theres a fifth breeder who was in OR but I have yet to find out who it is or where he got birds from.)
I couldn't have been more wrong! Out of over four dozen chicks (a dozen from each hatchery), I culled them all except for 3 or maybe 4 that I have kept just for eggs that I sell until I can get more chicks to laying age.
Of those four dozen, I got a bunch with stubs, at least one I remember had a half gray foot and a couple others had some gray in their feet, several got white-tipped feathers as they grew older, some laid lousy looking eggs and I don't remember what else right now.
Having said that, here's just a thought that you may wish to consider: It takes the same amount of money to feed a super, good-looking, high quality bird as it does an inferior one.
God Bless,
I was not able to get Welsummers from a breeder as we had discussed. She said she was having fertility problems so I got impatient and decided to try some Welsummers from four different hatcheries. I had often seen that all Welsummers came from Lowell Barber and figured since they all came from him anyway, it shouldnt take much to get some good looking SQ birds. (I later found out that there were actually at least three separate Welsummer lines in the USA. Lowell Barber and his friend have/had Netherlands/UK birds. My breeder and Horst Greczmiel had/have German birds. Theres a fifth breeder who was in OR but I have yet to find out who it is or where he got birds from.)
I couldn't have been more wrong! Out of over four dozen chicks (a dozen from each hatchery), I culled them all except for 3 or maybe 4 that I have kept just for eggs that I sell until I can get more chicks to laying age.
Of those four dozen, I got a bunch with stubs, at least one I remember had a half gray foot and a couple others had some gray in their feet, several got white-tipped feathers as they grew older, some laid lousy looking eggs and I don't remember what else right now.
Having said that, here's just a thought that you may wish to consider: It takes the same amount of money to feed a super, good-looking, high quality bird as it does an inferior one.
God Bless,