Sussex chosen as the breed of choice!

We have arrived at a decision on which breed of chicken we prefer for raising at little sprouts.  the winner is... Sussex. It is a heritage breed that works well for both meat and egg.  We ordered 200+ of them today, which amazingly will arrive next week.

Why did we finally choose the Sussex breed? Hunter actually hose them first. He studied all the heritage breed chickens when he wanted to expand his little flock and decided to try these. What we discovered is that we all love them. They are beautiful birds, and they are very sturdy... he didn't loose a single chick through adulthood! They are quite friendly and easy to manage. Their body shape makes them good for meat production as well as good being good layers. On top of that.. they are great foragers!

So we ordered a batch today so that come next spring, Little Sprouts will be in the egg business on a regular basis. We should be able to produce about 15 to 18 dozen eggs daily. We are also getting enough roosters to do our own breeding to keep the flock going indefinitely plus provide pastured chicken for sale. (I am a strong believer in raising all our own animals on farm instead of re-purchasing year to year).

That gives me a week to get some sort of egg-mobile built to house these little chicks in . We much prefer to start them in the pasture so we don't have the problem of them remembering that they used to live in the barn. So.. another project!

Stay tuned to see how the egg-mobile turns out. And next spring.. we will open officially for egg business!

Heres a pic off the internet showing what the birds look like fully grown: