Welsummer or brown leghorn

[debs_flock]

I have both a welsummer and a brown leghorn pullet. Yours looks like my welsummer. The comb is MUCH larger on my leghorn and she just turned 4 mos.

Deb

 

[lovinlife]

Earlobes are not developed on a chick. Once they develop, they are the color they will be. Those earlobes are white.

My Welsummer at 7 weeks. The earlobes are pink, soon to be more reddish.

 

[babyrnlc]

Ah ha.

So even if it is indeed a welsummer, because of the breeding the hatchery has done, it is a white egg layer, which defeats the whole purpose of having her.

She is real skiddish and not friendly at all. We were ONLY going to keep her if she laid dark eggs, but if there is no chance of that, then we will pass her on. They just want lots of eggs which I am sure she will provide!

Thank you!

 

[al6517]

Yes and unfortunately the hatcheries know this and it works to their benefit, the hatcheries know their customers best, they know they don't care if the bird only kinda sorta resembles what people think they ordered, they just have to market it as pure bred with pictures to match an industry wide discription hence the 400,000 post per day of people wanting to know what breed their hatchery mutts are. the problem is hatchery buyers don't really know how the business is structured, and to be brutaly honest they don't realy care one bit if they are mixed breeds or not, it's not an issue for them eggs is what they want and the hatcheries give them that in abundance. certain breeds are popular for certain reasons and if those popular breeds don't lay well then the problem for the hatchery is two fold.

one is they will never be able to have their contract breeders supply them with enough eggs of quality birds to hatch and fill the orders, so they instruct the contract breeder on what other breed of birds to stock and breed back mix breed it with another breed that looks sorta similar but lays like crazy. Some birds are known to have several other breed mixes in the recipe. it may have different color legs, feathering, head and combs, body type. So now they will have enough eggs to hatch and fill orders. secondly by mixing these good egg layers of like appearance to the popular breeds the offspring will also be good egg producers and that makes the Hatchery customer happy. so the customer get's a bird they are not sure is what they had in mind, they post asking what in the world is this ?? a few folks make close guesses and say how cute and fluffly it is and the customer is once again tickled to death of having a mix breed bird who lays eggs, and they say well .....as long as I don't plan on showing it's Ok to have a pure bred mutt. The hatchery wouldn't intentionaly miss lead me, they are a hatchery after all, and I trust they know birds better than me, Right ????

So you see it works out for both the hatchery and the buyer, the hatchery get's all the eggs it needs to hatch and fill money making orders and the customer get's a cute mutt that everybody on the forum loves and it also lay's a ton of egg's. The real underlying problem is both entities don't care what the other is doing LOL as long as they get the end result. It really is a wonderfull racket.

 

[babyrnlc]

Except the only reason I got a welsummer is because it is hard to find marans here and we wanted dark eggs! Sigh.

 

[al6517]

You are a member on the Okies thread right............. there just happens to be 7 bazillion of them who are trusted breeders of good Quality non hatchery dark egg layers. Wellies, all the different Marans you name it they have it and several are in your area, I know .... I know them. And almost all of those eggs will be a solid 6 if not a 7 on the dark egg scale.

 

[Carolyn]

I have some welsummers whose parents were from Ideal. You have a welsummer. Mine have had variants in leg colors and ear coloring is not the same. They are sweet natured, easy to raise birds and the roo was wonderful but died defending his ladies from a fox attack. Mine lay beautiful eggs that are much darker than my rocks and BO, they also have speckles on them. They are not nearly as dark as Maran eggs however. They are a little later to lay than my other hens. Even now they do not have as red of combs as my rocks and orps even though they have been laying almost a year and the others just started last month.
I did have one that I waited until she was 10 or so months old when I culled her for not laying. When I butchered her there was no evidence of her ever going to lay.

 

[babyrnlc]

Quote:
I posted in the thread a while back we no replies. I will try again. I drove an hour and some to get two fbcm pullets that turned out to be hatchery Roos. I am not having luck with these dark eggs.

I don't have a incubator. So eggs won't work. We just want two pullets sigh.

 

[donrae]

Those are white earlobes, should be a brown leghorn. If it's that important, wait til she lays, which looks like it will be a while, from that comb.

 

[babyrnlc]

Quote:
Post in there and only got reply for a rooster. Pm someone and her hens aren't laying. I posted on the marans thread and nothing. I guess no dark eggs this year