Breeds

Welsummer Chickens: Dutch Breed, Speckled Dark Brown Eggs, Chick Markings and Weights

Field guide · Updated November 5, 2026 · about 7 min read

The Welsummer is a medium-sized, single-combed farm chicken from the Netherlands, kept mostly for its large, dark reddish-brown eggs, which are often speckled. Hens and cocks wear the red partridge pattern, and many keepers sex the chicks at hatch by the markings on their heads. Below: what the American Poultry Association (APA), Oklahoma State University, breed clubs and poultry references say about the breed, including where they disagree on weights, egg numbers and broodiness.

Quick facts

Dutch origin and how it reached the US

Welsum lies near the IJssel river, and Backyard Poultry notes that Barneveld, home of the Barnevelder, is about a 45-minute drive away. Sources agree the breed was built from local farm birds of mixed origin selected for big brown eggs, but they disagree on the ingredients and the start date:

• Ancestors: Partridge Cochin, Partridge Wyandotte and Partridge Leghorn, later Barnevelder and Rhode Island Red (Poultry Club of South Africa); Brahma, Cochin, Malay and Croad Langshan, later Rhode Island Red and Brown Leghorn (Poultrykeeper); Barnevelders crossed with native birds (Hobby Farms).
• Start: from 1880 on (Poultrykeeper); shortly after 1900 (FeatherSite); the early twentieth century (Wikipedia, Hobby Farms).
• 1921: shown at the World Poultry Congress in The Hague (Backyard Poultry, Poultrykeeper).
• 1922 to 1923: first steps toward a standard (Wikipedia); Poultrykeeper dates an outline standard to about 1923.
• Britain: imported in 1927 (Poultrykeeper) or 1928 (Poultry Club of South Africa), mainly for the egg; a detailed English standard in 1929 and a revision in 1932 (Poultrykeeper), or entry into the British Standard in 1930 (Wikipedia).
• United States: exported after Britain, and accepted into the APA Standard of Perfection in 1991 (Backyard Poultry). The APA's own breed list gives no admission years.

Hobby Farms identifies Cornelius Rooster, the cereal-box mascot that debuted in 1957, as a Welsummer.

The egg: dark, red-brown and speckled

Oklahoma State describes "large, reddish-brown (and often speckled) eggs." Backyard Poultry calls the color terra cotta or "flower-pot red," and FeatherSite notes that Barnevelders and French Marans lay similarly dark eggs. The Poultry Club of South Africa gives brown to deep brown, with some eggs mottled with brown spots, and Poultry Hub Australia describes them as dark brown and spotty. Speckling and shade are not fixed: Backyard Poultry says that hatching only heavily spotted eggs can gradually give hens that lay more spotted eggs, that selection can push color lighter or darker, and that bloodlines differ. For the pigment behind brown shells and why they lighten, see the egg color chart.

Bantam egg color is also disputed: Wikipedia says bantam hens lay dark brown eggs, Poultry Hub Australia says light brown.

Partridge coloring and varieties

Backyard Poultry describes the Welsummer as genetically black-breasted red, also called red partridge, and notes that good males and females can both be bred from one red partridge flock without double mating. Poultry Hub Australia describes the cock as particularly colorful with rusty-red neck feathers, the hen as usually having gold, hair-like neck feathers, and both with a black tail showing a beetle-green sheen.

Sexing day-old chicks by their markings

Welsummer chicks can often be sorted at hatch by the dark markings on the head, as these sources describe them:

• Eye line: females have a dark, well-defined line from the eye toward the ear; males have a light, blurry one (Backyard Poultry). Wikipedia says day-old males have a light brown head and back with no dark eye line.
• Head triangle: dark and clearly defined in females, lighter with unclear edges in males (Backyard Poultry).

Wikipedia's Welsummer article calls the breed autosexing, but its auto-sexing article defines autosexing breeds by the sex-linked barring gene (males carry two copies and hatch paler) and lists the Welbar, made by a Devon breeder from Welsummers and barred Plymouth Rocks, rather than the Welsummer. None of the sources consulted gives an accuracy figure for sexing Welsummer chicks by their markings, so treat it as a strong hint and confirm later by comb, hackle and saddle feathers (see pullet or cockerel).

Standard weights

The Poultry Club of South Africa adds pullets at 2.3 kg and cockerels at 2.7 kg. It and Poultrykeeper note that the Welsummer is classed as a light breed in Britain despite its good body size, and as medium in the Netherlands; Poultrykeeper suggests the first imports were lighter than today's birds. In the US it is shown in the Continental class (Backyard Poultry).

Temperament and broodiness

Descriptions vary. Oklahoma State calls Welsummers "intelligent and friendly birds, although not especially docile." The Backyard Poultry breeder found them friendly, mellow and the least skittish of the breeds the author raised, and Poultry Hub Australia calls them docile. On broodiness the sources split: Hobby Farms says hens are moderately broody and good mothers, Poultry Hub Australia calls the breed a non-sitter, and FeatherSite says that although it is classed as a non-sitting breed, hens often go broody. FeatherSite also notes that they forage well on free range. Expect strain and handling to matter as much as the breed name.

Keeping Welsummers: checklist

1. Buy for the egg, from the right line. Shade and speckling depend on selection, so ask what the parent stock lays.
2. Use the chick markings, then confirm. Sort chicks by the eye line and head triangle, and recheck as combs and hackles develop.
3. Plan for a possible broody. Sources disagree, so be ready either way; see broody hens.
4. Give them room to range. FeatherSite calls them good foragers; size the coop and run with the coop space calculator.
5. Check the standard you show under. The APA recognizes one large fowl color; other countries recognize more.

Compare Welsummers with other laying breeds in the breed directory, and with the other dark-egg breed, the Marans.