Speckled Sussex - Thumbs up or down?

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Last fall I ordered 2 Astrolops, 2 Silver Cuckoo Marans, 2 Silver Grey Dorkings and 2 Silver Laced Wynadotte's. I got a call from MPC this morning to tell me that they couldn't complete my order because the Silver Grey Dorkings hadn't hatched. They offered a few replacements and I ended up replacing the Dorkings, pretty much without much thought with 2 Speckled Sussex. Will I be kicking myself at not doing more research before I said..."sure, whatever, send the Speckled Sussex instead"?

 

[EMcD]

We only have 1 Speckled Sussex, so I don't know if our experience is common or not. But I'll share what we've found.

She is the Alpha hen (they're just over a year old), but not mean. She just gets to treats first, etc.

When she was a couple months old, we thought she was mean. But we realized that she wasn't mean at all, she just doesn't like to be picked up. She'll run to us for treats, take from our hands, and is generally quite easy going. But she still doesn't really prefer to be held the way we can hold our others. I've had some other people tell me the same.

She's also a "dumpling" (that's her nickname) in that she's a rounder shape than our RIR or SLW (the other breeds we have are just chicks).

She lays a light brown egg, usually with white speckles on it. She's a good layer, but did slow down in the winter more than the RIR.

She has a beautiful green sheen on her brown speckled feathers.

Good luck with yours! I think you'll like them, they'll be a nice mix in your group.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I liked mine a lot. I loved my Dorkings, but they got picked on very badly by one of the other breeds I had at the time. The Sussex were friendly, mellow, attractive and got along fine with everyone.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Thanks for the responses. The chicks arrived on Wednesday. Unfortunately, one of the Silver Cukoo Marans was DOA and one of the Speckled Sussex was very weak and died the first night. Very sad my daughter had already named the tiny weak Sussex Princess Grace, so perhaps that didn't help with her survival chances. (all of our layers have been named after princesses, super models or Greek/Roman Goddesses and one we named Dianna met with an early demise as well, being killed by a bobcat before her first winter. Maybe we should break with tradition a bit and name one Elizabeth, because she seems to just keep going and going.)