What are WelBars?

[faykokoWV]

I am going to try and start to build a line of them this year if all goes well. I have an excellent line of Welsummers and Barred Rocks. Both the barred rocks and welsummers are APA SOP birds. I do have a line of commercial BR's so I might try and do two different lines to see what happens.

ROB

Rob, I'd love to see some pictures of your birds! Do you sell hatching eggs? Its so hard to find SOP Welsummers, I'd love to be able to share you as a source for people that live in your region.

 

[Rancher3535]

Rob, I'd love to see some pictures of your birds! Do you sell hatching eggs? Its so hard to find SOP Welsummers, I'd love to be able to share you as a source for people that live in your region.

You can see most of the birds on my facebook page. Send a friend request and I will add you to it in case you cannot see any of the photo albums.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockin-R-Ranch/539810502704477?ref=hl

Not sure I have any pictures of Welsummers on their. Mine came from Will Morrow of Whitmore Farm in MD. I can not say enough good things about the birds I have received from him.

Rob

 

[faykokoWV]

You can see most of the birds on my facebook page. Send a friend request and I will add you to it in case you cannot see any of the photo albums.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rockin-R-Ranch/539810502704477?ref=hl

Not sure I have any pictures of Welsummers on their. Mine came from Will Morrow of Whitmore Farm in MD. I can not say enough good things about the birds I have received from him.

Rob

I can see the photos, but no wellies there. Whitmore does have nice birds, and they are close to SOP. Most US birds don't have the long flat back called for and the tail angle is often not at 60 degrees as it should be. Have you joined the Welsummer Club? If not you should!

 

[Rancher3535]

Still working on my Welbars. Is anyone else in the USA or Canada working on them? I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were sex driven from birth. All solid black were females and all spotted were males. The pullets from the F1 are just about to start to lay so it will be interesting to see if the dark egg gene followed them at all. I would hope it would but one never knows until you actually see the product they lay.

I will try and take some pictures of some of the F1 offspring both female and male. I just set eggs from my really good show Barred Rock birds. So I will be running two different lines.

 

[Rancher3535]

Here are some pictures of my F2 Welbar chicks. Have not a clue what I have yet but I am learning.

1.5 weeks old - looks like 3 good ones and 2 culls unless the far left turns a different shade of color.




Day old - one good one and 2 culls?


Have to remember that one has to keep all of the barred brown birds and cull the others from what I have read.

 

[dheltzel]

I have recreated Welbars, based on the recipe on various sites. It took nearly 3 years to get them consistently autosexing. Compared to my Welsummers (original stock from Whitmore Farm) they are a little larger and seem quite a bit more robust, probably due to the infusion of the commercial barred rock genes. In my pens they lay much better (7 Welbar hens give about the same number of eggs per week as 18 Welsummer hens). I also have had poor hatch rates on the Welsummers (~ 50%), but the Welbars do much better. I have a bunch of young ones just starting to lay and their eggs are impressively dark (just like Welsummers when they start to lay).

Egg color comparison - left are Welbars, middle Welsummers, right Copper Marans


Welbar pullet, notice the yellow legs, as Welsummers must have


My Welbar flock expecting a treat

Pair of chicks, very easy to sex by color at every stage of development

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I have recently been looking into this breed....very interesting and attractive.

 

[whimzy]

dheltzel, wow! well done, really great looking birds. I have long been interested in Welbars any chance of you selling and shipping chicks?

 

[dheltzel]

dheltzel, wow! well done, really great looking birds. I have long been interested in Welbars any chance of you selling and shipping chicks?

I will send you a PM about getting some Welbar chicks.

 

[ageewax]

I have one of dheltzel's birds and I am very pleased with her so far. She has at least another month before she is expected to lay, so I'll update once we get eggs. But she gorgeous, calm, and less skittish than our other new pullet. I have no doubt she'll be just as friendly as our older hens as she ages. Gorgeous girl.