THE WELSUMMER CLUB

SILVER DUCKWINGS

After I had kept Welsummer bantams for two years, and done pretty well with them at quite a few shows, I decided I would like some Silver Duckwings. Having never seen any of these birds at local shows, I read the poultry standard to get a picture of what they should look like.

The National and Federation shows have classes for Duckwing and it was at the 1994 National that I was able to study the birds in earnest. I was hooked and just had to have some! Peter Thomas won the class with a lovely cockerel. He also had another male and a female in the class and, to my delight, let me take them home with me.

I hatch all my eggs under broodies and have fifteen White Sussex, some as old as seven years, which make excellent mothers. I get all the chicks I need, sitting some of them from March to June. Usually, I put two or three Duckwing eggs and Welsummer eggs under each broody. The hatched chicks are much lighter in colour than the other Welsummers and are noticeable straight away.

They have classes for Welsummers at most of the shows we attend and I usually enter three in each class, with one of them being a Duckwing. Occasionally they may get a card but, on the whole, a lot of soft feather judges don't know much about them or sometimes don't even know what they are!

This year we attended the Great Yorkshire Show, which is one of the Welsummer Club's regional shows. At this time of year most of my adult birds have started to moult and, this time, all my females had been spoiled with breeding pen scars. All, that is, except for a Duckwing hen which was in excellent condition. She was in a class with nine entries and did me proud by winning. She also won at the Bakewell Show. It's really satisfying to see a Duckwing do so well when competing against the more popular Welsummers.

There are only a handful of Silver Duckwing breeders in this country and, if the comments I get at shows about this lovely bird are anything to go by, there really should be more of us. So, if any of our Welsummer members are interested, I will gladly supply them with sitting eggs and share my knowledge as I would love to see this sometimes-overlooked breed become more popular.