03/18/2025
Breed Showcase
Blue Jersey Giants
Firstly why I like them, then the breed profile. I chose Jersey giants for temperament they are very calm docile birds. Beautiful and unique they have unique habits like purring. That's right my Jersey giants can be heard purring at night when all settled in their coop. They are also fiercely protective and at full size of 13 pounds not many small predators wanna tangle with giant rooster defending his girls. Original Jeff was a Jersey Giant!
The Jersey Giant chicken was developed between 1870 and 1890 by John and Thomas Black in Burlington County, New Jersey, near the town of Jobstown. The original intention of the Black brothers was to create a chicken that could potentially replace turkey as a table staple. Around 1895, the term “Giant” was used to reference the breed and they became known as “Black Giants” in honor of their creators – not because of their color. An early breeder, Dexter Upham of NJ, changed the name to “Jersey Giant.”
In 1921, the American Association of Jersey Black Giant Breeders Clubs was created, and the standard developed for the birds included a gigantic frame, single comb, yellow skin color, relatively rapid maturity, good vigor, and fine foraging ability. They have a medium to long body that is wide and deep, and so they can look like a square bird. Their back is flat, and their tail appears relatively short.
The Jersey Giant was recognized by the American Poultry Association (APA) Standard of Perfection in 1922. Today, Jersey Giants are accepted in the APA in three color varieties – black, white, and blue.
As its name implies, these typically mellow chickens are impressive in size with mature roosters weighing 13-15 lbs. and the mature hens weighing 9-11 lbs., however, the black variety is about a pound heavier than the blue or white variety upon maturity. Male birds stand 22-26 inches and the females 16-20 inches – the Giant is a BIG bird!
Black birds have a “beetle green” sheen which is very attractive. Legs are black with yellow feet soles and four toes on each foot. They have a red single comb and red wattles, brown eyes and a black beak that may has a little yellow at the tip. The blue variety has nearly black or dark willow shanks, and their feathering is a slatey-blue with darker blue lacing.
Jersey Giants are dual-purpose chickens, but they excel as meat birds with their body size. The young birds grow relatively quickly, but most take up to 8 to 9 months to reach a harvestable size with good body proportions. Although they can produce a lot of meat per bird, they are a slow-growing breed, and they have poor feed-to-meat conversion, so they must eat a lot of food to get them to a harvestable weight.
The hens of this breed tend to lay more eggs than other heavy breeds. Their eggs are extra-large in size with colors ranging from dark brown to light cream, and they lay about 200 eggs per year. Some Jersey Giant hens go broody and some do not, they can be good mothers, but they can have problems with setting due to their weight, as they can crush their eggs. When incubating eggs, the Jersey Giant breed sometimes takes 1 to 2 days longer to hatch than those of other chicken breeds. They start to lay between 5 to 8 months.
Jersey Giants are a very cold-hardy breed, but the large single combs on the roosters can be subject to frostbite. Jersey Giants generally lay during the winter. However, they do not do well in the heat, so they must have options to keep them cool in warm climates. Because they are larger than other breeds, you will need to make modifications to your coop to accommodate them. They need larger nesting boxes, more space on their roosting bars, and bars should be lower because they can injure their legs jumping down from higher ones.
They are a hardy breed, and they love to forage. They do well against predators, although the black and blue varieties do better than the white variety. Because they are large, some will fight potential aggressors. They are calm and docile and get along with other chicken breeds. They are friendly birds and many like to cuddle with their owners.
