Jersey Giant Chicken

Facts about Jersey giant chicken. The Jersey giant chicken is one of the largest chicken breed around. Jersey giant chicken was produced with the purpose of replacing the turkey. This is the kind of poultry that was primarily preferred for meat purposes. As the name suggests, the Jersey giant chicken did originate from the sate New Jersey around 1870, and their massive size was described by the Giant noun. The Jersey giant chicken was developed by crossing the Black Langshans, Black Javas, and the Dark Brahmas.

Physical Description of Jersey giant chicken

First, there exists three variety of the Jersey giant chicken, the Black Jersey, the White Jersey, and the blue Jersey. Back then they were raised as broilers and capons. It is the largest purebred chicken and a mature rooster weighs about 11 to 15 pounds (4.9 to 6.8 kg) and is averagely 24 inches tall (60.9 cm). A Jersey Giant hen weighs on average 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and is about 18 inches tall (45.7 cm).

The Jersey giant chicken has yellow skin color, it has a single red comb, and it is clean legged. Generally the Black Jersey is quite heavy compared to the White variety.

Behavior of Jersey giant chicken

The Jersey Giants are quite calm and very docile chicken breed. The cock despite its massive size, it’s rarely aggressive.

Properties of Jersey giant chicken

The Jersey giant chickens are kept mostly for the quantity of meat they produce per carcass. They can also be kept of dual-purpose production. They are also known to be good winter layers; and this is the time eggs are quite hard to come by. Jersey giant chickens are quite robust, and are somehow hardy to the cold season. The Jersey giant chicken’s hens also go broody at some point. Compared to the other heavy breeds, Jersey giant chickens will lay more eggs that are large and the color will vary from light cream to dark brown.

The Jersey giant chickens will always seem to have a slow growth rate, but in actual sense they grow as fast as the other pure breeds. Generally they are quite huge compared to the other breeds and in essence they take quite a long time to reach maturity with is often 8 – 9 months.

Because of their great size, the Jersey giant chickens are less flighty so they don’t need tall fences or pens.