I am such a fan of the Light Sussex. They are a great variety for someone who wants to get into Sussex and is beginning in poultry. That's several reasons. One is the color. The Light Sussex is eWh/eWh Co/Co S/S .
The Wheaten Allele. ( An allele is the basic canvas upon which the other colors and heir modifiers are painted. There are a bunch of them in poultry). Since the Light Sussex carries 2 copies of everything it is "pure" for each of those things. No worrying about "in-between" allele bases or color combinations. The are called a Silver Columbian based on the eWh allele.
Why do we care about the allele? Because it makes a big difference in how the birds are bred. In a pure eWh Silver Columbian, the under color( called the down often). is white t the skin. No color balancing of the undercolor is necessary to achieve top color ( the outside feathers) in the bird. If a Silver Columbian ( like the Light Brahma) is eb ( Brown ) allele based, the undercolor will have a hue(s) of color in them. This hued undercolor must be balanced in the proper color ratios or the top color will not be correct. Usually what happens in a Light Brahma is that unbalanced undercolor results in scattered black feathers in the white part of the bird's body.
So we see with the Light Sussex we can spend more time breeding proper breed type and not worrying about color. That said there are still a couple of color considerations in Light Sussex breeding. For instance one must not breed too much Black into the hackle ( neck feathers). if this happens the bird gets a "superhackle" ( popular I the UK right now). This is when the black in the hackle is so widespread that the bird look like it has a solid back ring around the bottom half of the hackle. The Light Sussex cock in the 1st post of this thread has a perfect APA hackle.
Another color consideration I have come across (and that I think is researched correctly) is getting proper ratio of the black in the wings when mating birds. I had a generation show up with scattered grey feathers upon the white of the bird's withers. I believe it was because I bred birds together which each had so much black in their wings. This caused black to bleed thru as scattered grey feathers on the withers. I wasn't aware at that time that amount of black in the wing feathers might be a consideration.
So we have a variety here easy to breed for color. What else recommends the Light Sussex to the beginner? Like all proper Sussex, they are docile and curious. The Light however, had its heritage tweaked also be a good layer, as the original Sussex was mainly a meat bird. The Sharpe book (readable online , URL in one of the previous posts) was written by the man ( Sharpe) who created the Light Sussex, invaluable info for the Light Sussex Fancier. Still, the Sussex breed was originally a meat breed. When I raise my Light Sussex, they are raised as meat birds on a meat bird diet from hatch. I used Agway Meatbird(by Cargill) with great success. I believe Cargill also makes a Meatbird of their own in the Naturewise category. I use the mediated crumble Meatbird diet. They thrive on it. If your cockerel seem long legged, don't worry the great breed and judge Leo Outram notes in his book about Sussex that he like to see a cockerel a bit high on its legs because as they mature the carcass settles down on the legs and they look just right.
The Sussex should never look like and Orpington. What did Outram mean by that? The Sussex is a close feathered breed. The Orpington more loose feathered. How can I tell the difference. In the Sussex the "pantaloons" ( fluffy feathered region below the tail and stretching down to the legs) should not be obscuring the side profile of the thighs. In Orpingtons, we see this as the pantaloons are so large one cannot see the definition of the thigh in profile. See Katherine Plummer's painting of the ideal Light Sussex she did for the 2010 APA SOP:
http://www.katherineplumer.com/closeups/poultry/SOP/LLightSussex.html
What is close feathering? It was described beautifully by William White Broomhead in his masterful brochure on the Light Sussex put out by the UK/s British Poultry Club. Judge Broomhead was a Judge for the Sussex Club, one of 3 Broomhead brothers renowned in UK poultry circles. he went on to become President of the British Poultry Club. This brochure was written as soldiers were coming back from WWI and the government was urging them to get into the poultry business as a means of earning a living.
Because in the Sussex, the breed hallmarks are so closely tied to the production virtues that "literally" if a bird doesn't look like a Sussex, it is not a Sussex... the advice and counsel in this brochure are timeless and relevant today.
The Light Sussex by William White Broomhead, published 1921.
http://www.tinyurl.com/jks9ddh
Best Regards,
karen
I will do a search on the site for his name and contact info. 
