- May 19, 2009
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It will not move you away if it is done in a balanced fashion. The problem they were seeing back there in the breed was a change in body type just for egg production. The Leghorn is a superb egg layer. Granted it is much easier to make money with eggs than grow out meat birds for the small breeder. Now the body type of the Leghorn is classic for egg laying superiority. Shallow, narrow. The Sussex is historically a meat bird. deep and long and wide.
The trick is to tweak the Sussex body type without changing it. That's where the interplay between breed hallmarks comes into play. For instance. a fine skin allows the skin to stretch when the organs swell when the bird starts laying. Coarse skin allows fat to build up under the skin. The fat keeps the skin from expanding and making more room for the reproduction organs, thus affecting egg laying negatively. How do I know if my bird has fine skin or not? The fineness of scales on the shanks and the fineness of texture on the comb and wattles are indicators of the fineness of the skin on the birds.
Note the close feathering on the Leghorn and the extreme fluffiness ( loose feathering) of the Orpington.
The Sussex is close feathered. that means it has underfluff but not to an extent that it makes the bird look like a fluff ball. the closer the feathering the better the laying bird, in general. That is why you will see in the Sussex literature that, in Sussex , you should be able to see ( unlike the Orpington) the definition of the thighs in the feathering. That is the hallmark of the close feathered bird in contrast to the loose feathering in the Orpington. My Sussex are pure English strain. As such, they tend to carry heaver "pantaloons" on the thighs even tho they are close feathered. See my avatar? she is only 10 months here and has improved her feathering as she matured . But in this state you can see no definition of the thigh from a side view. Now take a look at the painting depicting the ideal artist's view of the Light Sussex in the 2010 ( current) Standard of Perfection:
http://www.katherineplumer.com/closeups/poultry/SOP/LLightSussex.html See the definition of the thigh?
Are you beginning to see how the breed hallmarks also define the careful balance between meat and egg bird? now let's take a look at the head. It is very important when defining the quality of an egg bird. There is a very cool narrow book out there online by Steup called "Breeding and Culling By Head Points". https://archive.org/stream/Breeding.../BreedingCullingByHeadPoints#page/n1/mode/2up
A small volume and very instructive. In reading it, you will see that the description of the head of a quality egg layer is the same as that in the Sussex Standard.
Now let's take a look at the width of the body. There are numerous texts out there describing how to estimate egg and meat ability by the width between the pelvic bones. Narrow, not a good layer, ...wider, a good layer and also a quality carcass to hold meat. The breast bone, the Sussex doesn't need a long keel bone to be a layer, but it describes one in the breed because it is crucial for laying on meat in a meat bird. The breed doesn't need width of body to layer. But it does fro a meat bird, so it's in the Standard.
So after taking a small cruise around some of the breed hallmarks, how do we proceed to create a better layer without losing the meat hallmarks?
The late beloved poultry man and teacher Bob Blosl was once asked this question . He replied , to breed for better closeness of feather and it would raise the egg production by 25 eggs a year. This without moving the breed from close feathered to leghorn feathering. In other words, to change your hens so you could see from a side view, the definition of the thighs thru the feathering. We can breed for finer skin in out birds ( by selecting for finer leg scales and comb & wattle skin. We can continue to monitor the width between the pelvic bones to make sure it stays to Standard while we work on other traits. We can work for better depth of body which will give more room for egg organs and a better carcass for the meat. We can make sure our birds get the proper size granite grit at the proper ages so they develop a larger, healthier gizzard when they reach laying age Thus they can better process feed for digesting. This can result in up to 20% more eggs in a hen.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/891051/the-science-of-feeding-grit-to-poultry
One of the finest expositions I have ever read on the Sussex breed is this 9 page thesis by William White Broomhead. It is timeless wisdom distilled for the average soldier coming back from World War I and being encouraged by the British government to take up poultry breeding. At this time, the Sussex was the premier meat bird in England. Judge Broomhead was one of three Broomhead brothers noted in British poultry circles. He edited the Standard at one time and later went on to be President of the British Poultry Club.
Read it here: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003137332;view=1up;seq=5
It is so concise I go back and read it again from time to time. It's wisdom is useful fro any of the bred color varieties.
In conclusion, there was a wonderful thread on BYC a while back. It is called Chicken State University. Now ended and locked for reference, it discussed different breeds of poultry. One was the Sussex. In this discussion Dragonlady ( a Buff Orpington breeder with over 50 yrs. in fancy poultry) was asked to discuss a exposition of the Sussex standard. Here is the very revealing discussion with valuable insight into the why's of the Standard.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/732985/csu-chicken-state-university-large-fowl-sop
posts 1052 thru 1158 ( three weeks on the Sussex breed). ( Pages 104 thru 116 )
Standard exposition with dragonlady input on pages 109 thru 112.
post 1616 on width of feather.
Best Regards,
Karen
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