Welsummers are sold out until 2011.
Welsummer chickens are great layers of Dark Brown eggs. Welsummer chickens are a large, upright, active bird with a broad back, full breast, large full tail, and a single comb. Welsummer chickens are purported to be one of the top free-range foragers of all the layers. As adults Welsummers are a black/red color. The Kellogg's Corn Flake Rooster, "Cornelius" is a Welsummer. This breed is sometimes spelled Welsumer as that is how the Dutch spell it. They are noted for their large terracotta brown egg, some with brown mottled spots.
Welsummers can be sexed at birth. The female has what I like to call "eye liner" the dark line extending beyond her eye towards her ear is dark and very well defined. On the male, that same line is light and blurry. Similarly, if you look at the triangle on the top of their head, on the female it is dark and clearly defined, the male's triangle is lighter and the edges are not clearly defined.
Production: Welsummer lay more eggs than Marans and lay a large egg. Pullet eggs average 1.96 oz (55.5 g) just a hair shy of the USDA "large" classification of 2.00 oz. Eggs from adult hens consistently hit the large and extra large USDA weights. The hens do frequently go broody. They lay around 160 eggs per year.
Size Standard Cock 7 lb. Hen 6 lb.
History: The Welsummer is a Dutch breed named after the village of Welsum in the Netherlands, developed in the 1900's. Welsummer Chickens were created at the same time as Barnevelders but on the Ysel river area around Deventer in Holland. They were developed there from breeds such as Partridge Wyandotte, Partridge Cochin, Partridge Leghorn, and then later, Barnevelder and RIR. The Welsumer is a Dutch breed, named after the small town of Welsum where it first originated as a landrace of chickens that had long been selected for theproduction of large, very dark brown eggs. Nobody really cared much what these birds looked like, as long as they laid those wonderful eggs; and they were very variable in appearance, until at the beginning of the 20th century a Dutch poultry breeder took an interest in them and decided to refine them into a standardized breed. In 1919 the standard for the new "Welsumer" breed was officially recognized in the Netherlands, and the breed was introduced to an international audience for the first time at the 1921 World Poultry Congress in Den Haag. The eggs were originally exported for the commercial egg trade where they were an instant hit. Soon after stock was imported into England. The breed was added to the British Standard in 1930. It was first imported into this country in 1928 for its large brown egg. Admitted to the American Standard of Perfection in 1991.
Class: Continental
Conservation Status:New to United States
