We have found the Sussex to be a very quiet bird,  they are alert, attractive and love to wonder and forage.  Sussex do go broody and make good mothers, although their size can sometimes cause problems if they attempt to sit on too many eggs.  They are a very good dual purpose bird, and can be beautiful exhibition birds as well.

The ideal Speckled is a beautiful fowl, with its ground colour of rich dark mahogany feathers being mainly tipped with white and separated by a narrow black bar.

The chicks come in a variety of different colours, from a creamy buff to a dark brown, many with varying coloured stripes running lengthwise on their back.  As the chicks begin to feather up,  they do not actually look like they will as adults with many having a lot more white on them to start, darkening as they grow and mature and slowly loosing a lot of their white feathering.   Young pullets will tend to feather up quicker, have more patterned feathering around the 8 weeks of age and the males will begin to develop sickle feathers and larger combs.