SUSSEX FOWL

Raised on the Weald

for over 1,000 years.

At last! Here are some of the first Sussex Fowl we have produced. We are now selling them as shown with only the intestines removed. They are 24 weeks old as opposed to 7 for a supermarket 'free range' or 12 for an organic one. Their diet was as faithful a copy as we can get today and they taste divine. They carry less flesh than a modern chicken and take a lot more cooking but it is all about quality and these birds offer a taste and texture that is incredibly rare today. Available direct or from our Brookland White outlets by order.

For over a thousand years Sussex, Surrey and Kent fowl were well known to farmers and the public as the best of birds. Eventually two distinct strains evolved the five toed Dorking and the four toed Sussex. For the table the heavier Dorking was  the supreme  bird and the Sussex the dual purpouse champion. Unfortunately the Dorking was ruined by bad breeding to produce a stumpy horizontal type bird that is useless for anything but show. The Sussex was luckier and became the basis of the Sussex fowl and Surrey capons that were raised in the two counties and sent to London by their thousands where they fetched premium prices. In the 1870's one carrier alone was sending over 200 tonnes of chicken  by rail from Hailsham to London. This trade eventually ceased in WW2 due to lack of feed for the chickens and was not restarted as most of the expertise had gone by the time adequate cereal supplies were available again. The birds were mainly produced by small farms and cottagers but almost all by the same system. The birds were fed a special diet for the first five weeks then put to pasture with cereals. At about 16-20 weeks they were then transfered to cages for finishing again on a special diet.

Whilst researching this it became obvious that this system and the diet were the same as that used on the famous Bresse chicken. Liking a challenge we decided to resurrect the Sussex chicken with as similar a system as possible. There are a few differences being mainly that we would not cage the birds but yard them instead and we wont force feed which a lot of birds were.

There was also a major problem in that the Sussex had by this time become a minor breed at the mercy of breeders who would rather have good markings than eggs or meat. Most of the old breeders used the Speckled Sussex which was the original Sussex based on the farmyard birds from Sussex and Kent.

The only real survivor of the Sussex breed is the Light which is a later introduction using Brahma genes to give it its black feathering. The British never cease to amaze in that no other nation would let such a good bird degrade like we do. The French have made the Bresse a national institution with AOC protection since the 1950's. Fortunately for us the French also quietly recognise greatness in other nations assets and one breeder there had kept a pool of Sussex genes which we have tapped into. So using French and English genes we are once again producing very high quality and very different birds.

Left. The cooling and shaping racks used in the last century. The birds were treated very carefully during processing as the skin of a Sussex is more delicate that many others. The birds were shaped whilst cooling to give a broader look.

Right. The Sussex Ped which was the box used to send the birds to market. It was a returnable box so quite green for its time. Note the birds packed is straw but the transport and often the abbatoir has no chilling. The content could soon be green as well if care is not taken.