Meat · Breed · Short entry
Sussex
A large, dual-purpose English chicken from the old table-poultry country of Sussex, Kent and Surrey. A club formed in 1903 rescued it from crossbreeding, and it became a leading meat breed of the early twentieth century. Hens lay 200 to 250 tan to brown eggs a year.
Saved by a speech in 1903
The Livestock Conservancy says the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey were long known for fine table poultry with white skin and tender flesh. Five-toed birds became the Dorking, while four-toed birds were bred in varied local flocks. In Victorian times the area supplied eggs to London, and the Kentish or Sussex fowl was shown at the first London poultry show in 1845. Crossing with Asian fowl later coarsened the flesh, and by 1900 few pure flocks were left.
In 1903 the poultry writer Edward Brown urged Sussex farmers not to let their breed die out, and in July that year E. J. Wadman formed a Sussex club. The breed reached America about 1912. The American Poultry Association recognised the Speckled and Red in 1914 and the Light in 1929.
How it connects
Breed
- similar Plymouth Rock
