Content
The Welsumer is a breed of chicken bred in the Netherlands around the same years as the Barnevelder, in 1900-1913 of the last century. Mainly involved in breeding the breed partridge chickens: Cochins, Wyandottes, Leghorns and Barnevelders. There was also a rush of red Rhode Island.
The goal of the breeders was to obtain chickens that lay large eggs with colored shells. And this goal was achieved. The new breed was named after the small village of Weelsum in the Eastern Netherlands.
At the end of the 20s of the last century, these birds came to Great Britain and already in 1930 they were added to the British Standard.
Welsumers were especially prized for their large, beautifully colored eggs. They were bred as a productive meat and egg breed and have remained so to this day. And today, judges and experts at exhibitions first of all pay attention to the productivity of the chicken and only then to the appearance and color. Later, a dwarf form of Welsumer was bred.
Description
The appearance of representatives of the Welsumer breed fully corresponds to the ideas of many people about what a laying hen should look like in a village. This is a modestly colored bird in brown tones. Only experts will be able to figure out how the silver color differs from the golden one and how they both differ from the red partridge. The rooster is brighter colored. The main color of the rooster's feathers is brick.But as a meat and egg breed, Welsumer is larger than specialized laying hens. An adult chicken weighs 2-2.5 kg. Rooster – 3-3.5 kg. In the dwarf version, the rooster weighs 960 g, the hen 850 g.
Standard
In the Netherlands, the Welsumer standard has fairly strict requirements with separate descriptions of articles for laying hens and roosters. The color in this case is only red partridge.
The general impression of chickens is that they are light, active birds. In terms of "easy" impressions are deceptive. This is a medium-heavy breed. The impression of a light body appears due to a rather “athletic” figure with long legs. Tightly lying plumage also visually reduces volume compared to loose feathers in some other breeds.
Rooster
The head is medium in size with a large erect red leaf-shaped crest. The earrings are long, oval, red. Lobes and face are red. The beak is medium length, dark yellow. The eyes are orange-red.
Birds of golden and silver colors may have orange eyes.
The neck is of medium length with satisfactory development of the mane. The body is set horizontally. The silhouette of the body is an elongated oval.
The back is long, moderately wide. The loin is well feathered. The tail is located at an angle from the vertical, of medium pomp. Medium length black braids.
The chest is wide, muscular, convex. Shoulders are powerful. The wings are pressed tightly to the body.
Legs are of medium length, with well-developed muscles. Metatarsus yellow or white-pink, medium length. The majority of the population has unfeathered metatarsals, but sometimes the legacy of Cochins can be found: separate tufts of feathers on the metatarsus.
Chicken
The main breed characteristics are the same as those of roosters. The comb is small and regular in shape.The body is large and wide, located horizontally. The back is wide and long. The abdomen is well developed and full. The tail is located at an obtuse angle in relation to the body.
Exterior defects:
- poorly developed body;
- undeveloped abdomen;
- body position is too vertical;
- rough head;
- white lobes;
- squirrel tail;
- a lot of white on the neck;
- There is too much black in the color of laying hens.
But there can be different situations with color, since American standards give three descriptions of the color of Welsumer chickens.
Colors
The most common color is red partridge.
The rooster has a red-brown head and mane on its neck. There is a black feather on the chest. Shoulders and back with dark red-brown feather. The flight feathers of the first order are dark brown, the second are black with brown spots at the ends. The long feather on the lower back is the same color as the lancets on the mane. The fluff is gray-black. The tail feathers are black with a green tint.
The head is red-brown, the feathers on the neck are lighter with a golden tint and black in the middle of the feather. The body and wings are brown with black specks. The flight feathers of the first order on the wings are brown, the second order are black. The tail is black. The chest and belly are brown without speckling.
Silver
In American descriptions of Welsumer chickens, this color is called Silver Duckwing. Like the golden one, it is most common among dwarf chickens of the Welsumer breed, although it is also found in large form.
Roosters of this color completely lack brown color in their plumage. A white feather took its place.
In laying hens, red feathers are replaced by white ones only on the neck, but the color of the rest of the body is much paler than red. This difference is clearly visible in the photo of silver-colored Welsumer chickens.
Golden
A hen of this color is sometimes difficult to distinguish from a laying hen with a red color. The neck feather may be lighter and more “golden” in color than the red ones. The body is a little lighter, but in general these two colors of laying hens are very similar. This is proven by the photo of the Welsumer chicken breed with a golden color.
The rooster is easy to distinguish. Instead of a red-brown mane, the Golden Duckwing has golden feathers like the photo of this Welsumer rooster. The same goes for the back and lower back. Those feathers on the body and shoulders, which with a red color should have a dark brown color, are light brown with a golden one. The flight feathers of the first order are very light, almost white.
According to reviews from American owners of Welzumer chickens, judges at their shows pay less attention to the color than to the product, and in the American version of Welzumer, the types of colors can be mixed.
Eggs
The productivity of the large Welsumer form is 160 eggs per year. Weight ranges from 60-70 g. “Productivity” of the dwarf version is 180 pcs. per year with an average weight of 47g.
This is the only information on which there are no discrepancies. Welsumer's egg was valued not only for its size, but also for its color. On foreign and Russian advertising websites, descriptions and photos of Welzumer chicken eggs show products of a beautiful dark brown color with darker spots on the shell. The color of the eggs is so rich that when you remove the egg while it is still wet, you can wipe off some of the paint.
In addition, American breeders claim that spots on eggs are analogous to fingerprints, but for laying hens.A particular hen lays eggs with a strictly defined pattern of spots that does not change throughout the life of the bird. This point can facilitate selection, as it makes it possible to select eggs from specific birds for incubation.
In the photo in the top row are white eggs from Leghorn, in the middle from Araucan and to the left from Delaware hens.
The dwarf version of the Welsumer chicken breed lays eggs of less intense color.
The description and photo of Welsumer chicken breed eggs from European and Russian breeders is much sadder. From the “Bratislava” reviews it follows that the photo and description of the eggs of the Welsumer chicken breed do not correspond to reality.
The weight of the Slovakian Welsumera eggs corresponds to the declared weight, but the color is not brown, but beige. Although the spots are still visible.
The weight of the eggs of the Welsumer dwarf chicken breed is even a little more than described, but the color is also far from brown.
According to the owner of these chickens, the point here is that European judges at exhibitions pay attention to the color and exterior of the chickens, and not to the products they produce. But from reviews of Russian owners it follows that “Russian” Welsumers lay eggs weighing less than 60 g. But the color is up to standard. Eggs for incubation were purchased from the Gene Pool. But there is an assumption that a rejected egg was sold to a private person.
Chickens
Welsumer is an autosex breed. It is easy to distinguish a cockerel from a hen by its color. The photo shows chickens of the Welsumer breed.
On the left is a hen, on the right is a rooster. It is indicated in the description and can be seen in the photo that female Welsumer chickens have dark eyeliner. In cockerels, this stripe is lighter and more blurred.
Chickens also have a darker V-shaped spot on the head and stripes on the back.When comparing chickens of different sexes, as in the photo, this is clearly visible. But if you only have one chicken, you need to focus on “eyeliner.”
In the video, the owner of Velzumerov clearly shows the difference between a hen and a rooster. The video is in a foreign language, but you can see from the picture that he shows the chicken first.
Character
Welsumers are very calm, but at the same time curious birds. They are easily tamed and love to take part in all the adventures they can find in the yard. They recognize people well and pester their owners in an attempt to beg for an extra piece.
Reviews
Conclusion
Initially, the Welsumer is a high-quality, unpretentious and productive breed, very well suited for keeping on private property. But either because of inbreeding, or because of mixing with other similar breeds, or because of a bias in the show line, today it is difficult to find a purebred representative who has retained all the original productive qualities. But if such a bird can be found, then the chicken breeder eventually settles on this breed.
