The Sussex thread! - Page 156

These are the Speckled Sussex hens we hatched last July in an ice chest incubator my husband made. They are super friendly and excellent foragers. I just love them! They're really beautiful chickens. They started laying at 5 months and have been very consistent. The eggs are smaller than I'd like but we eat theirs and sell the Reds and Rocks eggs.

This is Laverne.

And this is Shirley

They are so pretty!! We have a speckled sussex chick in the brooder right now, hoping it will be a girl!!! 
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by SubruralGirl 

These are the Speckled Sussex hens we hatched last July in an ice chest incubator my husband made. They are super friendly and excellent foragers. I just love them! They're really beautiful chickens. They started laying at 5 months and have been very consistent. The eggs are smaller than I'd like but we eat theirs and sell the Reds and Rocks eggs.

 

This is Laverne.

 

And this is Shirley

 

was just given a coronation sussex egg!  But it in the bator with a few other eggs.  Can't wait to see if it hatches!

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucky123 

Looks like two pullets to me. The first think I really noticed about the cornations was their bright white cloud like feathers.

What you mean when you say "white cloud like feathers"? Do you mean the color or the puffy, fluffy, "cloud-like"  appearance?

 Thanks,

 Karen
 

Wow, what a nice breed! Now I'm even more excited, I have two speckled sussex chicks arriving on Thursday with 10 other chicks of different breeds.  Can't wait :-) 

Well, like i've said before, I have had many breeds, and the coronation sussex I have have been the fastest to feather out, started laying at the same age as my reds and lay just as good. I mean the feathers are a very bright white. My young cockeral is a little rough on the pullets, so, i have taken all of the cockeral out of the breeding pen to give the pullets a chance to grow some back feathers out.

Here is my baby girl. I am pretty sure she is a she. I have 4 and this one is by far the most feathered and has the biggest tail. She is also a lot more timid than the other three. 

She is my son's bird and her name is sunshine. As you can see, she is adored!

Here she is with two of the others who I suspect are boys (she is the one on the far left that is a blur, lol!). The one in the middle is a nasty, mean little thing!

I love going to see her many times a day. She is turning in to a beautiful girl, for sure. She is getting the spots on her breast and it seems like she looks like a different bird every day. Any how, thanks for letting me share!

We got this little peep at a feed store and after we checked out the lady says, "By the way, that's a straight run chick.  You may have a rooster on your hands."  I had my five kids with me, so I figured we'd have to take our chances.  I'd never heard of a Speckled Sussex, but they were so darn cute!  I picked him out because he seemed curious, alert, and calm.  After reading all the info I can find and looking at pictures I've got a sinking feeling Sundae is a cockerel and not the pullet we were expecting.  He is very sturdy, and while he does have tail feathers, they haven't grown nearly as much as the other breeds we have.  You can also see that he's got a bit of a comb which hasn't changed much in the few weeks we've had him.  All the other chicks in the bin looked exactly the same - I wasn't looking for differences at the time because I thought they were all girls - I was just looking for a healthy chick.

Here he is at two and a half weeks:

Here he is at four weeks:

We've decided to wait and see what happens, but what do you experts think?  Do I have a little roo?  I really love this guy and he gets along well with our other 7 chicks even though he's a few weeks older. 

We also have 8 laying hens (Black and Red Stars, and Partridge Rocks).  I'm open to having a rooster as I've heard that they can help protect the flock and ours free range in our large back yard.  I'm not interested in breeding at all since this is the only SS we have.  So how would those of you who have experience rate SS roosters?  Any tips on how to keep a roo well behaved (meaning not attacking me or my kiddos)?  Most of the information I've been able to find about SS has to do with the hens and if Sundae is a roo I'd like to give him the best chance of being healthy, happy, and non-aggressive.

I am no expert at all. I am a newbie. But I will say yours is about the same age as mine (see post above yours) and the one (and only one) I suspect is a pullet has a much larger tail and more back/wing feathering. I have 3 others that have short little tails and one that still has lost of back "fluff". 

California, that sure looks like a roo to me. I have 51 chicks in a brooder about the same age and about half have a comb just like your chick.