Speckled Sussex - Breeding to the SOP

[gwells1980]

Saphron did it again! Her new current record! Picture is attached of her last 4 eggs!

I love my little Sapphire Gem Hen, but I am growing concerned for her reproductive well being.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

She laid those all in one day? Poor little thing.

 

[gwells1980]

She laid those all in one day? Poor little thing.

No, that was the last 4 days. They just keep getting progressively larger.

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

I would love to follow along to see how you go with your Sussex!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No, that was the last 4 days. They just keep getting progressively larger.

Oh sorry, I got confused. I thought I was in the thread about hens laying multiple eggs in one day. Sorry, it was late. That is a HUUUUGE egg, though!

 

[gwells1980]

I would love to follow along to see how you go with your Sussex!

Welcome aboard! If you have any questions or comments on something that I could be doing better please don't hesitate to share it with me. This is going to be a long process but I think with everyone helping we can create the perfect Speckled Sussex chickens!

 

[gwells1980]

Good evening everyone!

Quick update on Earl and Lady
​

Earl is being Earl. Lets face it. The life of a rooster is a pretty easy one if you are at my house. You get to walk around feeling self important, crow periodically, and "find" food for the lady's, and by "find" I mean pretend like you did something amazing when you show the hens who are already eating the food I brought them, where the food is that I brought them. Here he doesn't have any predators and he doesn't risk ending up in the crock pot. SO basically... he is living his best life. As long as he keeps fertilizing eggs and warning the girls if anything larger than a Cardinal flies over-head, he will be great.

Lady is doing great. She is healthy, consistently laying, and still being abnormally friendly to me. She follows me around more than my Buff Orpington and if you have ever raised one of those, you know they can be clingy. Her eggs are perfect for size and color. I weigh each one she lays and there is barely and difference in size. (*I weigh them on a kitchen scale set to grams, and I keep records.... I don't know why, it is just something I do.*) I put 6 eggs in the incubator on the 22nd of March to test for fertility and viability. Unfortunately one of the eggs stopped growing on day 2-3 but the other 5 are moving right along.

So this is going to be the hardest part for me apparently. The waiting in between the plans and the hatching. Every day it seems like I should be doing something to further my SOP goal, but honestly, right now it seems like a long, slow, waiting game. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment.

If anyone knows where there is a young, 2 years or less, Speckled Sussex hen that is in good conformation to the breeds SOP, that they are looking to re-home, let me know about that too. I live in northeastern Kentucky.

 

[gwells1980]

Oh sorry, I got confused. I thought I was in the thread about hens laying multiple eggs in one day. Sorry, it was late. That is a HUUUUGE egg, though!

We decided to crack it open to use with dinner last night. It was a double yolker! I almost wish I would have incubated it and got a set of twins

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I've read that double yolkers rarely, if ever, hatch out twins. Why don't you start a thread about it, asking if anyone has ever tried and/or succeeded in hatching out twins? Would be very interesting!

 

[fuzzi]

Some of my Speckled Sussex bantams have more of a partridge coloring, others have white and rusty red feathers coming in. They're almost 6 weeks old, will they all wind up looking about the same?