Welsummer roo vs pullet

[Malissa]

Picked up our 6 chicks last Friday! They are wonderful little creatures and seem so happy. We love watching them do all their little chickie things! I ordered all pullets- 2 barred rocks, 2 welsummers and 2 ameraucana's. The Welsummer's look different. So after a little research, I think one is a Roo. Can anyone with a trained eye confirm at this stage? We are not allowed chickens because we have less than 3 acres (we have 1), but I was told that if the neighbor's don't complain, they won't know and won't come looking. I do worry a bit if we end up with a noisy roo, though. I'm hoping if it is a roo, he's not so loud! My son named it Lila (purple in German) and I told him even if it ends up a boy...he can still be Lila! The 2 on the left are the Welsummers and the far left is Lila. What do you guys think? If it's a roo....I hope it's the only roo in the bunch!!!!! It's coloring is definitely faded compared to the other chick...and less defined and alot lighter! Plus the eye stripe is very faded on Lila unlike the other Welsummer (Grun- green in German) Thanks for any help! This pics were from the day they come home.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Well you will know for sure in about 5 months.

lol kidding.

I do not know a lot about Welsummers but I do not think they are sexable by down color. And also, pretty sure your ameraucanas are Easter eggers. The chipmunk stripe gives them away. But there's nothing wrong with that. I raise both ameraucanas and easter eggers myself.

 

[Malissa]

as long as the eggs are pretty, my kids don't care which ones they are! I just know what I selected on the sheet and I read that places try to pawn off the EE as Ameraucana's....so I'm sure you are correct. I know, we'll figure out if the sucker starts crowing!!! hahaha My kids are so excited. I had a pet cockatiel we hatched from an egg for 19 years....he died afew years ago now and I realized how much I missed having a birdy around. Of course, he talked....I have high hopes for the flock!

 

[Christie Rhae]

Yup you should have a nice egg basket when your chickys start laying.

It is an awesome experience for kids to have chickens. My kids don't even realize how fortunate they are. It seems totally normal to them that we have baby chicks all the time. lol
One day I hope they will look back and say "hey...that was really cool". lol

 

[Paco]

Actually Welsummers can be sexed when chicks, but I forgot how lol. It has to do with the markings on their heads and some EE's look like welsummers when their chicks too.

 

[Christie Rhae]

Sexed as chicks or sexed by their chick down? I know that wheaten color chicks can be sexed but not by their down. You gotta wait till they are a few weeks old...still chicks for sure but not till some real feathers start coming in.
That would be interesting if welsummers could be sexed at hatch. I thought we did not have really many chickens like that in the US except for sex linked.

 

[Rachel96]

I recently purchased some Welsummers and did a lot of research beforehand about how to sex them - both places I purchased from allowed me to sex them myself as well as them. The brown bit on a male's head isn't a defined triangle as on a female's, and males tend not to have eyeliner like egyptian paintings. The brown markings on the females are also a darker brown than on the males. The method isn't one hundred percent and I'm fairly new at it, but there did seem to be quite a difference between the males and the females in the brooder when I purchased them.

That said, to my untrained eye there appear to be four Welsummer chicks in your picture. I guess two would be the Easter Eggers. I think (clockwise) there is a male and three females. But the angle isn't very good and if one is an EE it might just have less pronounced markings to a Welsummer.

I like the names by the way! Not sure how you came by them - I'm the time that would call your barred Rocks "Schwarz" and the Welsummers "Braun" (in fact I have a white Leghorn call "Weiβ" at the moment). Are you German?

Anyway, I hope I've been somewhat helpful with it all. I'm not an expert, though, so don't take my word as absolute truth!

from Rachel.

 

[Malissa]

The German names came from my kids (6 and 7). They have been taking after school German classes through their school. The high school teacher has sessions in the fall and then in the spring. I love that they are enforcing their learning!

The 2 darkest marked chicks are supposed to be EE'ers. They have more of a chipmunk look on their back than the 2 that are supposed to be Welsummers although, their wing feathers coming in (all 4 of the birds) all look like they are the same pattern. There was much room for error as I ordered them from our local feed store and they had them all in brooders by type and pullets should have all been together. The people working were family of the owner and I'm sure not experts on chickens so I'm sure there is a chance they grabbed the wrong thing and also know that I still only had 80% chance of pullets even though we paid for pullets. SO...with that said, i know this isn't an exact science.

I read the same thing about the males markings....and the one you recognize is the one I also suspect as being a male. I guess we'll see how it goes. I'm just hoping my neighbors don't have an issue because my kids are attached to them already! I used to hear a rooster on a farm near us but haven't noticed it in a while....I mean, we do live in the country, but our township says under 3 acres can't have 'livestock' and they consider poultry livestock. So if one of our neighbors complains, they will probably get us in trouble.

 

[Malissa]

Oh and the rock named Weiss is named because of her large white spot on her head! I rallied for Schwartz, but they decided Rosa for the other rock. My sons favorite color is green so that is how we got Grun. I insisted we had to have a Prissy thanks to Foghorn Leghorn cartoons and Flower is what they named a wild turkey that hung out in our yard for a big afew springs ago and they wanted to reuse that name! And of course Lila....why my son chose purple I'm not sure....but if it turns out to be male....we decided we would keep him Lila!

 

[EweSheep]

http://wcna.webs.com/chicks.htm

There will be a description of the chicks and how to tell the difference.

I see two EE chipmunks, two Welsummers (one boy and a girl (with a definate V) and two others.