I bought 5 light sussex chickens when they was 7 weeks old, they are now 14 weeks old. I believed they were all hens. Can anyone tell me if you can tell the difference as they all look cloaned. Also how many weeks are they before they start laying? When they are due to start laying is there something they do i.e. make holes in ground or something?
I currently have a box for them to go in thats alittle off the floor, everytime i fill it up with straw they kick it out of the box leaving no straw in the box. Is this normal. Maybe they would rather just lie on floor.
Light Sussex
That's my favorite chicken, and they're very hard to get here.
At this age you are not going to be able to necessarily tell between sexes. You'll eventually (4-5 months) hear crowing attempts if you have any roosters. Some folks are good at identifying roosters early: I'm not. As for nests, yours are not going to do much with that box at this age. They won't lay until 5-6 months or even later, depending on their food, light, etc. You'll need a nesting box or two for them at that stage. What they want to do is scratch, so that's all they'll do in that box right now until they get older and start thinking about eggs.
It sounds like you'd benefit from getting a book on raising chickens from your local library. Good luck!
i too would love to have sussex chicks!!!
we would love to see pictures...
my brown leghorn roosterss started crowing at FOUR WEEKS OLD, they are Eight Weeks old yesterday, and we are enjoying them immensely...
but when i can build another pen.... i really want some sussex
;-)
tf
Wow, crowed at 4 weeks ! ! !
I just now came across this thread (after I just posted another one about not being able to tell roos from hens)
Mine are all of 3 months old and I still can't tell who is who. None of them are crowing, so that's no help.
They must know that the first one to crow is in the freezer, so everyone is keeping a low profile. lol
jillnste, sorry I'm no help to ya, we're in the same boat.
Thanks for the reply. I have dont know one or two that make chirping sounds, will be on table if its a cockeral lol. Its easy to get hold of sussex birds where i live in france. The still dont have the waggle thing at the bottom of their chins hope thats a good sign lol. Around their faces is starting to go a little red which i was told when its fully red its a good sign of an egg. dont know if this is true.