Light Sussex bantams are an excellent dual-purpose chicken, meaning that they are suitable for both meat and egg production. They are very suited to be run as a family flock with a rooster as the hens regularly go broody and make very good mothers.
Don’t be misled by the term bantam, they are bantam versions of the Light Sussex chicken, which is a very large meat chicken breed, as such they are more of a medium sized chicken than a true bantam.
The only negatives being that they are relatively poor egg layers and appear to be more prone to scaly mite (a mite that gets under the scales on the chicken’s feet causing much discomfort) than any of the other breeds I have kept. I also lost a couple from becoming eggbound (when an egg becomes stuck in the hen’s oviduct).
Despite being relatively poor layers of all the chicken breeds I have kept this was my favourite. I reluctantly stopped keeping them when the local council banned the keeping of roosters.
ADVANTAGES
ADVANTAGES
- Relatively friendly and even tempered.
- Hens make good mothers.
- Hens regularly go broody, which is great if you have a rooster or access to fertile eggs for them to sit on.
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Good meat chicken. (despite their compact size there is plenty of meat on them when killed.)
DISADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
- Mediocre egg layers.
- Longer than average moult period (no eggs laid when moulting).
- Hens regularly go broody, which is a nuisance if you don't have a rooster or access fertile eggs for them to sit on.
- More expensive than crossbreed chickens.
- Has a slight tendency to become eggbound.
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Susceptible to scaly mite.
Note that the chicken breed profiles on this website are only of chicken breeds that I keep or have kept in the past, for more comprehensive reviews of the various chicken breeds available I suggest you explore more specialised chicken husbandry websites.
I have also noticed that purebred chickens of a breed can show different characteristics depending on the specific breeder they were sourced from, so please take these comments as a loose guideline only.
