#i want a speckled sussex

[general-george-washington]

man, I want to get chicks in the spring

[growlithe]

two of my hens have gone broody and im soo tempted to get them some fertile eggs but idk what kind!!

[kasper-k]

Sometimes the best therapy is getting a cool lookin guy and hanging out with them

[rederiswrites]

Man, not to be Old, but when I first started raising chickens like 18 years ago or so, I swear chicks cost $2 for a rare breed, less for a standard. Now they want me to pay $9 for a female sexed semi-rare breed. Some places will charge you $12 or more for a highly sought after chick like the Marans that lay dark brown eggs. Bro that's still a chick. It could just croak and then you're out $15 for nothing.

I know prices shot up when demand skyrocketed during the pandemic. Which, tbh, I am willing to pay a price for more people raising chickens. That's an objectively good thing to my mind. But still. Ouch. Plus the whole reason it's on my mind anyway is that you have to order months before ship dates to get what you want these days. And what I want is some more Speckled Sussex.

[plantanarchy]

Is there anything that surprised you or you wish you knew before when getting chickens? I’ve been wanting some for a while and finally have the property to get some :) thinking about speckled Sussex I think

Not necessarily! I'd been wanting chickens for years and did an obsessive amount of research prior to my chickens. I do wish I'd handled them more when they were wee, because they're feral little beasts that are sometimes difficult to nab if I need to. But also the classic, wish I'd opted for a large, walk-in run in the first place.

Good luck with your chookies!

[jessicarabbit1988]

I now have chickens 

The first two don’t have concrete names (I want to call them Flint & Pepper) but the white one is Bill and the orange one is Hester! Grey - Rhondda Blue (although we think we might have been given a Rhondda Rock instead) Speckled - Barred Rock White - Sussex Pont Orange - Welsh Blacktail

[sayhowdycountrycritters]

I wanted to add some new hens to our flock this year. I just placed an order to a hatchery in Iowa. In order to get the breeds of chicks I want simultaneously, we have to wait for a delivery of about June 4th. The chicks that will be arriving by mail are two American breeds; Delaware and Silver Laced Wyandotte, and an English breed, the Speckled Sussex.

[overmorrowpine]

hey chickenkeepers

you know that ridiculous heat wave in the us right now? a few years back we had 109 degree (f) heat where we were, and this is how we avoided losing any chickens to the heat

get a big bucket, like one of those five gallon ones from home depot or whatever, and fill it with water

grab your chicken and swoosh them around in the water, keeping their head above the surface, and try to get the water into their down and not just their surface feathers

[image ID: a photo of a person lowering a grey easter egger into an orange five gallon bucket. the chicken's wings are pinned at her sides. end ID]

they'll fight you because they won't want to be dunked but we didn't lose a single chicken in the heat wave and others lost several so do it anyway

[image ID: a photo of a speckled sussex chicken kicking and flapping while held above the bucket. water is going everywhere, and the person is trying to pin the chicken against his chest. end ID]

when they are sufficiently soggy let them go do what they want and repeat with the next bird. our birds went and sunbathed because they were drying themselves off but the dunking still helped i think

our measure of if it's hot enough to dunk the chickens is if it's over 100 f, and if it is then we dunk them

good luck with your birds!

[ashen-vulture]

So yesterday I got my new hens.

I got a Speckled Sussex, which is the breed I really really really wanted, and I love her. She acts so clever and haughty and I love the way she walks. She is such a dinosaur. She is also the most talkative of the three.

Then I also got a buff orpington. She is quickly sorting out to be the bottom of the pecking order because she is a soft scaredy baby.

And I also got a lavender orpington, which I didn't know was a thing until recently. She is SO INCREDIBLY SOFT. Like a warm thundercloud that can be held. She is very bossy towards the other hens.

I've gotten all of them to eat out of my hands, so I think the taming process is gonna be smooth!

Also, my speckled sussex laid an egg while in the kennel. All the hens were in with roosters before I bought them, so I'm gonna let them keep this first batch of eggs and see if anything happens, but I highly doubt it will. They're all pretty young hens.

Tomorrow I will have the wheels properly affixed to the coop, and they shall be wheeled onto green grass!

[kifu]

Long chicken rambles with pictures as I try to figure out what I'm doing next year.

My biggest problem that I'm encountering is I have so many ideas and so little space, right? I have the pen that I built this fall, that's to be sectioned off into two separate sections that can hold about five to six chickens each. It's currently my overcrowded oldest grow-out pen that I need to dig out all the straw from so that the ground can actually drain. It's a mess in there and straw is detrimental, just fyi.

That's two larger breeding groups. I also have my cock block pen in the barn, which can hold around seven or eight birds. That's my younger grow-out pen at the moment, also where all the birds that for some reason can't brave the grow-out pen go so that they can get some fluff back to their feathers. Originally, the cock block was designed to be split in half, but I will not be doing that. I kind of like it just the way it is.

I have a chicken tractor that I built a few years ago. It can hold about a trio. It currently has my bantam hold backs.

I miiiiiight be able to make room for two or three pairs and maybe another trio. Maybe. Bantams go in rabbit cages for breeding season, so they're not an issue.

So first project bird that I have is with my big boy. I love love love this cockerel. He's half cochin, half sussex. I have one matching pullet to go with him, and if I have the room, another younger pair of him with shitty quality black. The purpose of this project next year is to create a speckled sussex pattern onto large fowl cochin - or a proper mille fluer cochin. I believe when I did the math, I have a one in eleven? chance of hatching out just the chicken from him and his lady. They're both mottled, so that's one less recessive that I have to worry about. They carry for partridge. They both also have one copy of columbian pattern AND mahogany, it just doesn't express on black.

Honestly, thinking of it now, I think I'm wrong in my earlier math. Chicks have a 25% chance of hatching out partridge, and then a 75% chance of at least one copy of columbian and then of mahogany. I certainly don't need them to be homozygous in either of the dominant expressing genes. That's a mere 14% chance of hatching out the visual color I'm after. That's a one in seven chance.

I might have issues with foot feathering, putting f1 birds together instead of back to a cochin, but that theoretically puts me at a 10.5% chance of hatching the color with foot feathers, which is still better than one in eleven. (Though I explicitly remembering coming up with 14% so I think I just remember the fraction math wrong. I don't think my math was wrong, just faulty memory.)

ALL THIS TO SAY - I want no less than a trio of phenetically mille fluer cochin out of this pen. Then I say goodbye to all my f1s. *cry*

Because ohmydear just look at that cockerel. He's gorgeous. Very striking, even if he makes a shitty cochin.

Next project that is of utmost importance involves Mr. Wyandotte sir. This cockerel - oh I went through SO MUCH trouble to get him and he's just amazing. I LOVE how well he's growing up, especially since I got him, and I'm so so so excited for the project he'll be involved in.

So the thing is, I don't have any gold laced cochins. None. Zip. I am NOT messing with dominant white and silver so ... I'm putting him over a couple partridge hens. My partridge are not good quality, but they'll get the project started. At the very least, their offspring will have some feathers on their feet and their combs will be split to single.

Using a cock with homo dominant white will result in dominant white pullets and cockerels. I'm just going to have a mess with lacing (and breeding out leaking black). HIS lacing isn't great, but buff laced is a project in wyandotte as much as it will be for me in cochin. I'm not sure how dominant white plays in hetero form, but I'm sure I'll find out next spring.

Hopefully I get some choices in pullets and cockerels out of his pen and get to keep the best lacing, because they'll be het in EVERYTHING. Pattern, melanotic, columbian - but thankfully those are ALL dominantly expressed. What really works for me on this is that both wyandotte and cochin work their laced varieties on the partridge base, so ... I don't have to mess with extension genes on this project.

A less important project, but a project that I have an f1 cockerel for anyway, is blue laced silver. This boy is a result of a silver laced cochin over a blue laced red wyandotte. So he's het silver, which causes some CRAZY gold leakage. But considering his mother should be MAHOGANY as well, it's not gold leakage as much as RED leakage.

This boy has better lacing than ANY other laced bird with feathered feet. Quite possibly any laced bird on the property.

I know I've talked about this boy and stressed over the future possibilities with him before.

I think I want to put him over both silver laced girls that I have. Theoretically, I make half boys with his level of leakage, and half boys with the proper homo silvering and (please) no leakage. And half silver pullets, half gold pullets. Then half of ALL THOSE, blue.

So, keep anything blue and silver, of course. But I'm really tempted to keep everything not gold, but RED laced with blue as well. Which will be all pullets, but ... no, I think I will. I'll keep the blue laced red and maybe blue laced gold because THAT WAS AN ORIGINAL GOAL.

My problem with the silver laced is that my pure silver laced cock died just a couple weeks ago. Out of the blue, he just dropped dead in the main flock. So fuck - I might just keep anything silver laced, idfk. Just get rid of the yellow laced (ie het silver) cockerels, I dunno.

(By the way - that sussex hen beside the silver laced hen is one of the probable mothers to big boy. That's the color I'm seeking in that project pen.)

Next big big project is chocolate. I have one older boy growing up that is out of my mauve splash cochin hen, and I have one older boy growing up that is out of the chocolate orpington. I have my chocolate hen that's actually really nice now that she's grown her feathers in. Finally. I miiiiight have another cockerel in the youngest hatch that's out of that mauve splash hen, but it's mostly a brooder full of pullets. Which are useless to me in this project. How often do you hear complaining about hatching out a ridiculously disproportionate amount of pullets? I also miiiiight have a chocolate cockerel out of the orpington hen and then mauve bantam cochin. If that is a boy, I'll keep him on reserve.

I actually am a little impressed with how the type is coming along on this blue cockerel. He's leaky as fuck, which is incredibly annoying. For one, he's out of two solid birds, so where did it come from? And breeding out leakage is one of the last things I want to do in my chocolate project. The amount of leakage on him suggests that he's NOT from the mauve splash hen, but I have absolutely nothing else that he could be out of but an even better blue hen. Ironically enough, the black that's most likely out of the orpington is almost as leaky, so I'm not sure what's going on here.

I'll know within a couple hatches whether or not he's split for chocolate. If I hatch out zero chocolates, he gets eaten and I substitute in the orpington cross cockerel(s).

I know that I'm putting at least two of my nice hens under him. I'll probably give him the mottled hen and the typey black pullet I have growing up. I don't know if I'm going to put the chocolate hen under him. If I have the space, I'd really rather she got paired up with the nicest blue cockerel that I have. I don't want to work with mauves, but I'm not about to be a chooser. I'll be getting mauves out of the blue cockerel anyway.

I have three blue cockerels and a splash cockerel growing up. I somehow got every one in on this picture. The lovely raggedy guy front and center is the cockerel I hatched out of the blue hen this year. The other three, I bought. I technically have the one I hatched up for sale because his comb is an absolute mess, but he has some very promising type.

I don't know if I'll be using a single one of these boys next spring, but I want them around to see if I can use them to improve on the type I already have grown up. But I do know that if I have the space, the best one will get paired up with my chocolate.

My black boy is the main man from this year. He's filled out SO MUCH these past couple months since I took him out of the breeding pen. He's almost impressive. I love how much his chest comes forward, but I would like to see a lot more depth to it. His tail has filled out immensely this year, but he still needs so much more depth to it. He's still better than most cochins I see around me. But this is the boy to beat in my programs.

He's getting my barred hens, even though Basketball is probably done laying for life. He also gets my blue pullets. There's at least three really nice ones growing up. And when I say that, I think I mean that the blue hen pictured above is the best cochin I own. She also forgot what hygiene is, but the amount of mass she's gathering as she grows - and how forward and deep her breast is already - I'm excited for her specifically. And I really think my barred hen(s) have a lot to offer in the cushion department. They don't necessarily have the depth of cushion, but they're way fuller than anything else I have. The barreds just really lack foot feathering in comparison.

But his pen - his pen is where I crunch down on TYPE. No funny color business (though I would kill for a barred cockerel out of that pen ...). Just black, blue, and ... yeah that's probably all that'll hatch out of his pen.

IF I had space, I'd put the typiest cock with the blue hens. Whether that be black boy or one of the blues growing up now - even though that's really difficult to judge when cochins take tonever to grow up. And I'd put the next typiest cock with the barreds. So that I could keep it separate and actually know what the hell I was hatching out. I don't think I have that luxury.

Last big project is the partridge. And the partridge shouldn't even be a project, but their type begs it so. I have three partridge cockerels growing up - all of them better than their sire. I'll keep one. I have ... three? partridge pullets growing up. They're really just around because I haven't sold them yet. I sold all of my oldest partridge grow-outs from this year to pay for rabbit feed. I also have three partridge hens. The wyandotte gets two of those partridge. I want one or two under the partridge boy.

Because I also have a good handful of black pullets growing up out of the black boy and the partridge hens. I think I also have one cockerel, but he can go. I'm going to keep the typiest two and put them under the partridge cockerel. Sell everything that hatches out black, and hope that my partridge type improves and that the melonizers don't totally mess with the partridge pattern.

I also really would like to put the blue laced red wyandotte back under a partridge. I hatched out zero blue things out of her and my partridge from this year. My dad hatched out two. I know for a fact he's keeping the pullet, but even if he's not keeping the cockerel I can bet that he's gotten rid of him already. I really do want blue laced red cochins. So between this pen and the pen of silver laced blue things, I actually have a decent chance of making a blue laced red pen for next year.

.

OHMYDEAR. I forgot about my wheatens. Fuck. I have two gold wheaten maran pullets that I got from FFH to make wheaten cochin. I need to put THEM under one of the blue cockerels. Ha. Oh shit. They'll make 100% blue or black birds that carry for wheaten, but it'll just be like the f1 sussex cross from this year. I'm not a huge fan of gold wheaten. HOWEVER, I have a couple different directions that I can later go with wheaten: silver wheaten (or better yet, take the next step, add mahogany and have salmon cochin) AND FURNESS. Furness would be a project. A really big project by isolating the melanotic gene from the laced birds, and then adding that over top wheaten, but absolutely theoretically doable. But quite honestly, I'm ahead of myself. I'll be happy with gold wheaten in two years from now.

.

Big pens are absolutely going to the type flock and partridge flock. But I just need to figure out how I'm safely separating these guys to get started next spring.

(I just don't want to think about winter, let's be honest.)

[grison-in-space]

see @coffee-mage-sans-caffeine this is why I want exclusively clean footed* breeds for my prospective chicken coop. I have been plotting chickens for three years and just as I do not want to clean the face or ass of my dogs in exchange for beards or fluff, I do not want to clean the feet of my chickens. I live in Minnesota where the spring plunges us all into mud hell for two months and we cheer and clap about it because At Least It Isn't Snow; I do not need to also have mucky chickens stomping around and Helping.

I want speckled Sussex and Easter eggers and probably Buckeyes or Australorps or--look there are SO MANY GOOD CHICKENS without resorting to Brahmas

*not feathery

[wingedd20]

It's 13°F this morning and the Chipens somehow managed to get their coop open and were quite eager to come inside for some scratch and fresh water. Abby the Speckled Sussex complained quite loudly about being put back in the run. They will just have to deal with it because they don't get to roam the yard till the hawks have had breakfast and i don't want to clean up the mess they would create being inside the kitchen till then.

[tkingfisher]

This is Becky the Speckled Sussex. I do not think most chickens like to be held like babies, but Kevin had to flip her over the other day to trim her toenails—you don’t generally have to trim chicken nails, but she’s seven years old and has bad feet—and she was like “Yes, I approve of this, human. In the future, you will cuddle me this way until I allow you to stop.”

She also demands that her treats be offered to her in a human’s palm. Becky does not choose to scuffle on the ground like a peasant! Becky requires treats be brought to her as befits her station!

The roosters all think she is the sexiest thing on two legs and for awhile there she couldn’t leave the coop without inciting a riot. She had to go stay with the bantams until they settled down. (The bantam roosters view her much like Everest, and while they will occasionally try to scale those heights, it’s not something they want to do every day.)

[mfjenks]

How to say “I love you”. Sherlock Holmes edition

“I am lost without my Boswell” -  A Scandal in Bohemia “Your presence might be invaluable” - A Speckled Band “You are a conductor of light” -  Hound of the Baskervilles “I am very much in your debt” -  Hound of the Baskervilles “I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more” -  Hound of the Baskervilles “And believe me to be, my dear fellow, very sincerely yours, Sherlock Holmes” - The Final Problem “I knew you would not shrink at the last “ -  Bruce-Partington Plans “ I conceive it possible that I may want you”  - The Retired Colourman “I never get your limits, Watson”  - The Sussex Vampire “You won't fail me. You never did fail me” - The Dying Detective   “Can you ask, my dear Watson? Do you imagine that I have no respect for your medical talents?“ -The Dying Detective “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry “ - The Devil’s foot  "You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" - Three Garridebs "My Dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected." - The Empty House

[sincognito]

Six new baby chickens have been acquired!

Two Partridge Brahmas, a Black Orpington, a Splash Minorca, a Speckled Sussex, and finally, a Coronation Sussex.

The two Brahmas have been named: Goji, short for Gojira (Godzilla) after what a big boyo he is, and Moth, short for Mothra to complete the Kaiju duo.

Goji has already been charged with naughty chicken crimes (biting his siblings because he was hungry and thought they were hiding food from him), so the entire drive home I had to hold the chick box with one hand and Goji with the other so he couldn’t try to bite anyone else :’D

Goji was informed that he was a very naughty boy... but immediately fell asleep in my hand, so I don’t think he was paying attention 🤔

As some as you may know, I lost my beloved Flash, my disabled rooster, a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been struggling a bit with his loss, but I wanted to get another rooster to help manage my wild ladies. The new babies have helped bring back some joy into the house, but my boy will forever live in my heart.

[homeofhousechickens]

hello! havent seen alot of your previous posts yet but i wanted to ask if you have an opinion on swedish flower hens? our chickens all either have a swedish flower rooster dad or a dwarf cochin dad and various possible breeds/mixes for their moms, so most of ours and their current chicks have some sorta typical swedish flower white spots and i personally rly like that look :D

I kind of have a sort of negative opinion of the Swedish Flower hen these days 😅 also so no one gets confused the Swedish Flower hen and 55 Flowery hens are different breeds.

All Swedish Flower hens in the USA are so very inbred due to all of them being descendants from the birds Greenfire farms brought over. Greenfire Farms themselves are not a good hatchery or breeder that keeps up with standards and good genetics sometimes even letting their birds free breed with the other inbred breeds then selling those chicks as pure to people for a very high price.

Swedish Flower hens are a land race which means they should be genetically varied and hardy but due to the inbreeding common in this endangered breed its common for people to experience hatching failures, genetic defects such as severe curled toes, and to have high mortality the first year of life.

Another thing because they a "rare" breed and do not breed true its very common for people to outcross them haphazardly to anything and everything but still classify the chicks as the breed. These outcrossings are rarely for betterment of the breed and more for aesthetics which is why its becoming more and more common to see birds with vaulted skulls from this breed. The vaulted skull on this breed is apparently so unstable "breeders" tell people not to breed crested birds to crested birds because they commonly produce chicks with brains that are exposed through the vault. Thats... not good considering even the average silkie and polish doesnt experience those problems that often. Honestly at worst they are a severely inbred breed severely lacking in genetic diversity and hardiness and at best they are some nice looking mutts who could have who knows as their genetic background as its not hard to make a mottled bird on a gold base.

So while they are a breed known for being docile, friendly, and good foragers they are definitely a breed i dont really like to much in America at least. The Swedish Flower hen just doesnt have any pros that out weigh the cons to me especially compared to breeds who have a similar feather pattern like the Speckled Sussex.

SPEAKING OF the Speckled Sussex the most stable lines of Swedish Flower hens are ones that usually have been heavily outcrossed and mixed with Speckled Sussex anyway to the point where i feel like those are just lines making the mottling on the Speckled Sussex more random so they can then sell them as Swedish Flower Hens lol

As for your chicks, mottling is actually recessive so both of their parents had to be mottled or carried the mottling gene which may help you narrow down the parents!

I am sorry if it seems like im just crapping on the breed but i just dont like the breeding practices behind it especially when we already have a friendly lovely breed in the more established Speckled Sussex. Sometimes people in my local group will post Swedish Flower Hens they were sold and they really are just some regular Speckled Sussex in fact the pictured hen above is a very pretty Sussex 😅