Black Jersey Giants

The Gentle Giant! These birds are docile and sweet. This breed is slow-growing, they can take 2-3 years to reach their full size. They are all black with a green sheen in the sunlight. They come in other colors such as white, blue, splash, but we only have black. They have thick grey legs with yellow on the bottom of their feet. This is a heritage breed and they are not prone to health problems. They are a cold hardy breed and can tolerate some heat, in the cold you do need to watch for frostbite on their combs and they do need adequate shade and cool water in the summer. Due to this breed being larger, their roosts need to be closer to the ground than most to prevent leg injuries, about 2 ft off the ground is recommended. These are classified as dual-purpose birds, can be used for eggs and meat. They are our primary meat birds because we prefer slow-growing meat birds and free-range them while they are growing to cut down on feed costs. All of our extra roosters will be grown out for meat production and any extra hens as well. This breed starts by growing a big frame then slowly fills in the frame with meat. It is best to wait to harvest these birds until they are 8 months or older, to get the most meat. These big birds do eat a lot of feed if you don't let them free-range. 

When we started our flock in 2024, we sourced our birds from different breeders including Motrosa Farms and Marias Jiants. As chicks, we focused on temperament/disposition, growth rate, and adherence to breed standards. As they grew we monitored this criteria until we had our top birds. Though we are not showing out birds yet, we do plan on showing some in the future. For now, we are just working on creating the best birds we can. Once our four separate flocks are established we will practice spiral breeding with our birds to maintain genetic diversity and keep a self-sustaining flock. This breed tends to live 6-8 years. They do tend to go broody and try to hatch their own eggs. We do utilize our broody hens for hatching eggs on occasion. This bird tends to stay around 8-12 pounds for hens and 10-18 pounds for roosters. They lay a Large to XL Tan egg and tend to produce about 200-260 eggs/year. You can expect them to start laying at around 6-7 months old, and these hens can out produce a lot of hatchery production breeds. 

For our Black Jersey Giants, we are focusing on a well-rounded bird: 

A deep-bodied large bird that is good for meat

A hen that lays an abundance of good-quality large eggs

A beautiful bird that meets APA Breed Standards

A bird with a good temperament 

We plan on hatching out our Black Jersey Giants February-September each year.