Sooo much pooping

[helenmb]

Hope you can help me?

 

I bought 3 new girls a month ago 2 hybrids and a silver sussex. The hybrids are developing well and have grown their combs and wattles quite well plus we have started to get the odd egg from Blanche our Amber Star.

 

Esme the Silver Sussex does not seem to have grown her comb much at all, she - we think - is around 20 weeks old. Do you know how long your SS's took to lay? Also she seem massively flighty compared to the hybrids and is an amazing flyer - have you found this too with yours. The others are quite happy to be handled but Esme hates it and makes a massive fuss.

 

Hope you can help with my questions.

 

Here are some pictures of her taken this week (which are in my Gallery Album)

 

 

Here she is with Blanche who is now laying the odd egg

 

[The Dogmother]

Lovely girls Helen. I wouldn't worry, she's probably just a late developer and will calm down when she eventually starts to lay. Clip her wings though.

[Snowy]

I think the sussex is generally a bigger bird than the others and tends to be a later developer. I thought mine was going to be very tame but as she has got older she has also got more flighty. She is getting better, she does crouch for me now (and does a thumping tap dance! ), but when she decides to fly she gets surprisingly high for a hefty girl!

[ChickenGeorge2]

Our Silver Sussex is 22 weeks no sign of her laying yet and there is no way she will let us near her, we are maybe lucky though as she has never tried to fly.

I suppose we will just have to be patient.

[beach chick]

she's LOVELY but still looks a bit of a baby! I have a silver sussex, Chardonnay - looks very like your girl. she's now about 18 months old and a great layer. from memory, she was slower than my hybrid Bluebelle girls, but once into it she did the trick. in fact, she now lays better than the surviving bluebelle (we lost Tara the bluebelle to a visiting dog, and then Mercedes the other sussex to a fox 6 days later).

I've now got Crunchie, a light sussex, and she is HUGE!! bigger than Char, but lays smaller eggs - go figure.

Char's only downside is a tendency to going broody, but as long as I turf her off everyone else's eggs she usually snaps out of it quite quickly.

I'll check my profile and see how old char was when she began to lay...

EDITED TO ADD

OK, Char's first egg was on 2.07 last year. we got her mid-may, allegedly POL... and she was a good 2 weeks behind Paris.

 

the plus point of pure breeds, as I understand it, is that although they are not such prolific layers they go on for longer than hybrids...

[The Dogmother]

POL is a fairly loose, coerall term that can include hens from 16 up to 20 weeks. When you also bear in mind that some breeds and individual hens mature at different times, you can se that the range of ages when they actually do start to lay can be quite wide.

 

The shorter daylight hours at this time of the year slows them down too.

 

You'll have eggs when she's ready. She's a pretty girl.

[tom123]

My Silver Sussex Milly only started laying at around 25 weeks so don't worry about that and her comb has never been very big and it got to it's eventual size at around 26 weeks!

 

Don't worry!

 

Tom

[helenmb]

Thanks to everyone who has replied to my post, all your comments are really useful particularly about the flying and slightly less 'pick-up-able-ness' (is that a word?) of your Silver Sussex's, its obviously a breed thing.

 

I think Esme may well be able to take off to quite a height given half a chance, I haven't clipped her wing yet because she has plenty of space and hasn't made for the fence yet. I've good neighbours too so if she does I can get her back (she says hopefully ) really easily.

 

I can get her to eat out of my hand now without any problems, are meal worms wonderful things - she goes mad (as they all do) for them

 

If you have any pictures of your girls I'd love to see them as there doesn't seem to be much available online as to how they look full grown.

H