Characteristics and features of the breed of chickens Jersey giant

More than 200 existing breeds of chickens in the world are divided into three groups: egg direction, meat and egg-meat. Some of the meat chicken breeds belong to the so-called “folk selection”: cochinchin and brahma.

These breeds of chickens were valued in their homeland for laying eggs in winter, when there was a great need for these products. But for the northern countries, these breeds of chickens were not suitable. Being too thermophilic, the chickens died from the cold.

Meat chicken breeding interested mankind only by the end of the XNUMXth century. Before that, chicken was the food of the poor (and to this day, chicken is often not considered meat), it is enough to recall the legend about Napoleon, who hated chicken.

After breeders paid attention to chickens, industrial “table” breeds of chickens quickly appeared. The main efforts were aimed at achieving meat precocity, that is, the rapid development of the pectoral muscles.

As a result, large breeds of chickens appeared, with a live weight of up to 4,5 kg for laying hens and 5,5 for roosters. But even among meat breeds, the Jersey Giant stands apart.

Breed of chickens “Jersey Giant”, description and photo

Jerseys are a relatively young breed of chickens, which will be 2022 years old in XNUMX. But many other chicken breeds are older.

The Jersey Giant chickens were bred in the state of New Jersey by breeder Dexter Wuham. There is an assumption that, in fact, John and Thomas Black worked on breeding this breed of chickens in Burlington County much earlier, crossing large breeds of dark-colored chickens. As a result, Jersey giant chickens are larger than any other meat breed of chickens.

Compared to roosters, a female Jersey breed can even be affectionately called a chicken, her weight is “only” 4 kg. Roosters grow up to 6-7.

Although true chicken breeders greatly appreciate and love this breed of chickens, today it is quite rare. And it is most likely that it is unprofitable to breed it on an industrial scale due to some features of the content.

Breed Standard

Jersey giant chickens do not have any external differences that sharply distinguish them from other breeds of chickens, except for size, of course. If the photo shows only a chicken, without any indication of its size, then it will be very difficult to tell whether this particular chicken belongs to the Jersey Giant meat breed of chickens or if it is an egg hen.

To be impressed by the size of the “chicken” you need to reference the scale.

This is how you can see if it’s a giant or a laying hen.

Character

Fortunately, the Jersey Giants have a calm and accommodating disposition, although they have Indian fighting cocks in their pedigree. Even a small, but aggressive, rooster, attacking a person, can cause serious injury. If the Jersey roosters did this, they would have died out by now, as the real Irish wolfhound died out in its time.

Color

The first Jersey Giants were exclusively black, but in 1921 they were brought to England, where breeders began work on breeding other colors. Later, the Jersey giant breed of chickens appeared in other European countries. The result was: white color in England and blue edged in Germany. To date, three colors are officially fixed by the standard: black with an emerald sheen, blue framed and white. Any other colors result in automatic culling of the chicken from breeding.

Head

The roosters of the Jersey Giant breed have a rather wide proportional head with a large straight comb divided into 6 teeth. The beak is not long, strong, well curved. The eyes are large, dark brown, almost turning into black, bulging.

Earrings and lobes are large, rounded, without characteristic wrinkles, bright red.

The color of the beak of different color lines in the breed differs depending on the color:

• black color. Black, with a slight yellowness at the tip of the beak;
• white color. The beak is yellow with dark streaks;
• blue color. Same as black.

The similarity in the color of the beaks of the black and blue colors is explained by the fact that the blue color is a weakened black, due to the presence of a clarifier gene in the chicken genome.

The blue color in the homozygous state is lethal.

The neck is arched, powerful.

Chassis

The body is tightly packed. The wide chest and back are almost parallel to the ground, the fleshy chest protrudes forward, giving the chickens a proud look.

Wings of medium size, close to the body. Feathers are shiny, tightly fitting to the body of the chicken.

Legs

Set wide when viewed from the front, thighs and lower legs are strong, well muscled. The color of the metatarsus is slightly different in different colors. Black color: black metatarsus with a slight yellowness below. White – the metatarsus is yellowish below. Blue – metatarsals are the same as those of black.

Tail

Breed pride. Set at an angle of 45 degrees to the line of the back. In roosters, the long and wide coverts of the tail cover the tail feathers. Large braids cover small braids and tail feathers.

Also, hens are somewhat lower than roosters and look squat. The tail is at an angle of 30 degrees to the line of the back. The tail feathers are shorter, but the tail looks more magnificent than the cock’s. Otherwise, chickens do not differ much from roosters.

Defects in a thoroughbred Jersey, leading to culling

These vices include:

• small weight of the chicken;
• uncharacteristic body structure;
• too light eyes;
• uncharacteristic color of the metatarsus;
• at the ends of the fingers and the reverse side of the sole, the yellow-marsh shade is completely absent;
• feathers of a different color from the standard.

Separately by colors: in black, white feathers are a disqualifying factor; the white has bright eyes and pure yellow paws; blues have red, white or yellow feathers.

In principle, all these vices give out an admixture of other blood in an individual. Such a chicken cannot be admitted to breeding.

Productive characteristics

The Jersey giant grows very quickly, by the year the roosters already weigh 5 kg. The most active growth occurs in the first five months, then the daily weight gain decreases and the content of the young meat stock becomes unprofitable.

Jersey chickens left for the tribe lay their first eggs at the age of 6-8 months with a body weight of 3,6 kg. A fully grown Jersey laying hen weighs a kilogram more. For a meat breed, the Jersey giant has very good egg production rates: 170 eggs weighing 70 g per year. The shell of the eggs of the Jersey giants is brown. With quality feeding, strong.

Pros and Cons of the Jersey Giant

The advantages include:

• unpretentiousness to conditions of detention;
• complaisant and calm character;
• well developed incubation instinct;
• fast growth;
• high yield of meat.

Disadvantages:

• tendency to obesity;
• the need for a large living space;
• loss of palatability of meat in the age of a bird older than a year.

Since the unpretentiousness of the Jersey giants to the conditions of detention due to the requirements of a large range is somewhat exaggerated, it is logical that the Jersey breed has not become widespread on an industrial scale.

Diet for Jerseys

The composition of the diet for the Jersey giant does not differ from the diet for any other meat breed of chickens: 40% corn, 40% wheat and 20% various additives, including vitamins, shell rock, cake and chalk.

The second diet option: ready-made feed. Here it should be borne in mind that, in general, feed for egg breeds of chickens, designed to stimulate egg production, goes into retail sales. You can get out of the situation with the help of feed intended for chickens. Since chicks of any breed grow quite quickly, this feed is able to provide the Jersey Giant with the protein and calcium it needs.

Feeding is carried out 2-3 times a day.

In winter, chopped vegetables and herbs can be given as an additive to the Jersey giant. The nutrition of laying hens intended for breeding must be monitored very carefully. Jersey giants are prone to obesity, and an obese chicken is not able to produce a quality fertilized egg. Accordingly, the percentage of fertilized eggs in the clutch will be very low. Consequently, the norm for laying hens is cut a couple of months before the start of laying eggs. In summer, to make life easier for yourself, and to improve living conditions for chickens, Jersey giants can be released to walk on the grass.

On such grass, Jersey chickens will happily find all the necessary vitamins and minerals for themselves, leaving behind a dead desert in which there will not even be ants.

Specificity of content

The Jersey Giant can adapt to being kept in a cramped environment, but its health in this case will leave much to be desired. When keeping chickens indoors, it is necessary to take care of well-designed exhaust ventilation, which will remove ammonia that accumulates in the floor area. Chickens love to wallow in their litter, and the Jersey Giants are no exception. It is there that the ammonia released from the decaying litter is collected. With the systematic presence of high concentrations of ammonia in the room, the loss of livestock may begin.

Jersey chickens tolerate winters well and are able to walk in open-air cages during the day. The enclosure area per one Jersey chicken is 0,5-1 m.

Due to their large body weight, Jersey chickens do not fly (although it is not known whether the Jerseys themselves know about this), but it is better to enclose the enclosure with a sufficiently high net or make it with a roof so that smaller breeds of chickens, who know for sure that they can fly, could not get into the enclosure to the jersey giants.

Yes, this is what your aviary will look like in reality instead of advertising green grass with Jersey chickens walking on it.

Moreover, with the declared density of chickens per unit area of ​​the enclosure, it will look like this in a maximum of a month.

To completely clear a piece of land from grass, insects and underground larvae with earthworms, it is enough to fence it off and run chickens there. The population density of chickens depends on the time allotted for cleaning the site. One chicken per 50 m² will cope with the task in 2-3 months if the site is not heavily overgrown with weeds, and in six months if powerful plants need to be destroyed. It is not recommended to leave chickens for a longer period, trees can also end.

In fact, chickens really need to be given green grass and vegetables, but it is better to harvest it yourself and give it in an aviary specially built for them than to let it out in search of pasture.

Breeding

If you decide to start breeding a Jersey giant, and your neighbors do not have chickens of this breed, it is not rational to drag live adult chickens from afar. It is much easier and cheaper to buy hatching eggs and, following the instructions, hatch the desired chickens.

On the first day after hatching, chicks usually do not eat, even if they have food in front of their noses. But they need water. It is better if it is heated to 50 °.

In the first days of life, not only Jersey, but also any other chickens need to be given a chopped egg, since growth during this period is very rapid and babies need a large amount of protein to build their own body. Or you need to take care of special feed for Jersey chickens in advance.

General recommendations for raising chickens come down to observing just a few conditions:

• air temperature not lower than 25°;
• long daylight hours;
• lack of drafts;
• clean heated water;
• special feed for chickens;
• vitamins and antibiotics.

Unfortunately, infections often walk in industrial incubators, so chickens will need antibiotics. In the future, if your chickens are healthy, then the chickens do fine without medicines.

The power of the light bulb and the level of heat generated by it is selected depending on the ambient temperature. If the street is +30 and above, then the light bulb needs a minimum power, only for lighting.

The principle here is simple: if you don’t know how to do it right, do it as in nature. In nature, chicks receive heat from above from the body of the mother hen. At the same time, under the paws they may have wet earth. Therefore, the cold floor is not so terrible, although it cannot be cold with a litter, as it is impossible to warm the head and back.

The grown-up Jersey hens are capable of breeding from six months. The ratio of hens to roosters should be 10:1. Jersey giants are good hens, but due to their large body size and some clumsiness, hens can crush eggs or throw them out of the nest. Therefore, eggs from under their Jersey hens must be collected and also placed in an incubator.

If the purity of the breed is to be maintained, the producing flock must be kept separate from other breeds of hens.

The arrangement of housing and an aviary, as well as feeding Jersey chickens can be viewed on the video.

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