Been to a few fall fairs around here and been looking at the speckled sussexes shown there. I am not at all interested in showing, and not greatly interested in breeding to the standard (my main priority is to breed for functional characteristics)... but at the same time, I should probably knw what the standard IS so that I can move towards it in all-things-being-equal situations. Do not own SOP, not going to pay for it either So may I ask a coupla color questions to those who know: -what shade of brown is it supposed to be - darker, lighter, more-reddish, more-yellowish? I notice that the birds at the fairs were almost all more of a lighter chestnut color than mine which are darker mahogany or dark-chocolate. Would I be correct in assuming the lighter brown is more correct? -how much emphasis is placed on how evenly the white spangles are distributed over the body? -are males supposed to have any particularly-visible amount of white on the hackle and saddle feathers, or can they be basically just dark reddish brown? -significant numbers of white flight or tail feathers are a bad thing, yes? Thanks for any help, Pat