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I breed Wyandottes in a range of attractive traditional Wyandotte colours, including Partridge, Pencilled, and Laced - gold,  silver, blue and buff - and am developing new colours such as millefleur, spangled and speckled. 

My Projects:

	Partridge Wyandotte Bantams
	Partridge Wyandottes were the first chickens I owned as an adult. They were beautifully marked, their type was a bit long and lean but they were dreadfully infertile and what did hatch were mainly males.  So my aim was to improve fertility and increase the ratio of pullets to cockerels that I bred.  The fertility is now excellent, I'm hatching loads and getting the same number of females as I do males (in fact this year I have bred more pullets than cockerels. Another improvement has been in type, legs are more strongly yellow, body rounder and broader, and some prettier combs, I get some excellent marking too; however the strain doesn't yet breed all the good bits on every bird!  A lot of hybrid vigour has been brought into the line from suitable birds from the two spangled projects.
	Gold, Blue and Buff Laced and Blue Silver Laced
	These were the second bantams I bought.  They were lovely birds and their only fault was their neck hackles which were the same colour as the lacing were not the correct colour for the standard. So I bred the blue and buff laced to silver laced.  The result has been a new colour "Blue Silver Laced" which is very pretty and some birds with correct hackles plus better broader lacing than I had before. I don't take too much notice of this project at the moment but they reliably breed me some nice chicks with good temperament.
	Silver Spangled
	I always loved Wyandottes because of their handsome statuesque shape and their placid  temperament which makes them easy to keep. However spangling as in Silver Spangled Hamburgs has always been my favourite colour. So being unable to find spangled Wyandottes I decided to breed my own.  To start with I only used Wyandottes, it has been a long journey but  spangles are just beginning to appear.  The birds have type to spare, because of this and the fact that I want to breed birds with spangled white tails (rather than black unspangled tails) means that the logical next move was to cross out to Spangled Hamburgs to introduce the the birchen gene.  I now have masses of half Hamburgs/half Wyandottes,  they are all sorts: some black all over, some birchen, others are looking like they will be fairly properly spangled - as well as all sorts in between! Next year I will breed the best together  as well as breeding back to some unrelated nearly spangled stock from the project. Fingers crossed !
	Gold Spangled, Millefleur. Speckled,
	The names and the genetics of these varieties are somewhat complicated. The first is black spots on a gold background, the next two are spangled but with feathers ending in a white tip - caused by the recessive mottled gene.  I aim that these should generally have black tails.  The Millefleur and Speckled patterns are just spangling with the addition of recessive mottle gene.  This means that carriers of the mottled gene mated to birds that exhibit the white spotting with throw a 50/50  tricolour and spangled.  As I like the really dark tricolour birds like Speckled Sussex as well as the lighter Millefleur the gold spangled will come up in every shade of red and gold.  One or two birds are nearly how I want them. Some interesting shades crop up including blue and pale yellow..  I am encouraging this for a bit of variety and fun.  For progress pics on spangled breed click here.

My aim  has been to develop my own strains of Wyandotte bantams bred to the Poultry Club of Great Britain's Wyandotte standard and my birds have all the traditional characteristics of the breed and are successfully shown.  I have also selected for good health, vigour, an easy-going temperament and excellent layers of good sized eggs - size matters even in bantam eggs!  I am particularly pleased with the mottled and speckled Wyandottes which lay eggs round the 1^3/4 - 2 ounce mark. Spare cockerels make good eating but are are at least six months before they are a worthwhile size so need hanging.

My chickens are purely a hobby  - "Sedgwick Hens and Bantams" only came about when Yellow Pages rang me by accident and I decided to go along with their suggestion of having a free entry in the directory but I often have point of lay pullets, cockerels and hatching eggs available for sale.  I am located near Horsham, West Sussex, within easy reach of the M25 and M23

Clare Skelton, Chickens at Sedgwick Hens and Bantams, Horsham, West Sussex.  Wyandottes in many colours.