Wow, this is the breed that Southern Delights Poultry has struggled the most with. We have spent the last four years trying to locate the highest quality stock to start our breeding program with. We ordered eggs and chicks from many sources. Most of the birds were culled from our program. The number one issue that we kept seeing over and over was SIZE. Sussex of any variety should be a large bird. The roosters should mature at 9 lbs. Time after time, we saw roosters maturing very short of the 9 lb goal. The second big issue we were seeing was color. The speckled sussex is a tri-color bird. It has a mahogany base with thin black bars and white speckles.
We started our Speckled Sussex with a few hatchery chicks. We fell in love with this breed because they were pretty and super friendly. Even when the birds have too much white or the black bars are too wide, or the mahgonay is more brown than red, the breed is still pretty. Add to that the personality of the breed, and we were sold on them. These birds love to free range. They love to scratch and hunt for bugs.
Shortly after we fell in love with the personality of the hatchery quality speckled sussex, our search for high quality birds began. We ordered eggs from an eBay seller who advertised that the line of birds had been in their family for a long time. Then we ordered chicks from a breeder in Texas that advertised show quality stock. Then we ordered eggs from an individual that provided pictures of good stock. Lastly, we ordered eggs from a breeder who showed and won at chicken shows during the last three years. Southern Delights Poultry can HONESTLY say that we have done our very best to locate good stock.
We kept the best of the birds that we were able to find over the last few years. Southern Delights Poultry hatched the first generation of chicks from these breeders in Spring 2013. Seriously, our work with this breed is a work of love.
We will happily ship hatching eggs to your family so that you can experience the beauty and delight of the Speckled Sussex.
Visit the Hatching Eggs tab for current pricing.
Hatching Eggs - Available February - September.
