#Speckled Sussex

[thomas--bombadil]

Portrait of a young Speckled Sussex hen.

I had forgotten how intelligent and friendly they can be.

[mandsleanan]

Where did this romanticism about loose Chickens in the Garden start?

Do you know what unsupervised chickens running loose in your garden gets you? A fucked up garden.

They eat everything. Not just the bad bugs. The good bugs. Bees from your hive. New shoots coming up. The tops of your root crops. Unripe tomatoes. Ripe berries. Your rare Aroid that you brought outside for more natural light.

What doesn't get devoured gets either trampled down or dug up. Then they go stabby-stab into your baby pumpkins with their damn face-knives. Dig holes like a sled dog trying to escape the suburbs. Gods help you if you’ve got a hormonal rooster with a clear line of sight to your elderly neighbor.

You’ve heard good fences make good neighbors?

Well here good fences are the only thing keeping the prehistoric horrors at bay. They will test the perimeter. Yes I know they're soft, round, and cute. They still forage like an orc army. Don't be John fucking Hammond.

~

For the Horde.

[makenna-made-this]

*narrator voice* More like Brooder's Gate 3, amirite???

[superfluffychickens]

My cute little Cricket taking a dirtbath!

[kartavacante]

More of my chickens as raptors. Left to right is Phaedra, Ms Sus, Ishtaria and Asha.

[sayhowdycountrycritters]

I wanted to add some new hens to our flock this year. I just placed an order to a hatchery in Iowa. In order to get the breeds of chicks I want simultaneously, we have to wait for a delivery of about June 4th. The chicks that will be arriving by mail are two American breeds; Delaware and Silver Laced Wyandotte, and an English breed, the Speckled Sussex.

[serps-up]

got assigned my chick for poultry class. her name is Scrunt.

[dreamlordmorpheus]

Ma’am I did Not give you permission to become arboreal, get down from there this instant

[qutens]

Sorry I've been neglecting setting up my queue again, have a chicken version of Mable instead :)

[sincognito]

Six new baby chickens have been acquired!

Two Partridge Brahmas, a Black Orpington, a Splash Minorca, a Speckled Sussex, and finally, a Coronation Sussex.

The two Brahmas have been named: Goji, short for Gojira (Godzilla) after what a big boyo he is, and Moth, short for Mothra to complete the Kaiju duo.

Goji has already been charged with naughty chicken crimes (biting his siblings because he was hungry and thought they were hiding food from him), so the entire drive home I had to hold the chick box with one hand and Goji with the other so he couldn’t try to bite anyone else :’D

Goji was informed that he was a very naughty boy... but immediately fell asleep in my hand, so I don’t think he was paying attention 🤔

As some as you may know, I lost my beloved Flash, my disabled rooster, a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been struggling a bit with his loss, but I wanted to get another rooster to help manage my wild ladies. The new babies have helped bring back some joy into the house, but my boy will forever live in my heart.

[wickedscribbles]

Happy Pride to Pippa, who has started treading and tidbitting for the other hens and stopped laying eggs. Oh yeah -- they're also mounting hens 😳 Pippa has always crowed and been particularly aggressive, but it wasn't until recently that I've started seeing these other changes. Pippa will be six in September, so getting older, and it's definitely not unheard of for a chicken to change their sex if their working ovary stops functioning. At the moment Pippa still looks like a hen, but we will see!

[wingedd20]

It's 13°F this morning and the Chipens somehow managed to get their coop open and were quite eager to come inside for some scratch and fresh water. Abby the Speckled Sussex complained quite loudly about being put back in the run. They will just have to deal with it because they don't get to roam the yard till the hawks have had breakfast and i don't want to clean up the mess they would create being inside the kitchen till then.

[seabeck]

My speckly girls

[makenna-made-this]

Love my pet circle

Angered her

[superfluffychickens]

Here’s the Speckled Sussex baby and her silly little toady face! She actually came over and sat on my arm today, when she’s around the other chicks she’s more comfortable getting close to me. I’m thinking of naming her Cricket, since she had bug eyes and a particularly shrill chirp, plus she’s jumpy and hard to catch, like a real cricket!

[general-george-washington]

man, I want to get chicks in the spring