Leghorn x White Jersey Giants

I really love White Jersey Giants, but I also like faster maturing, faster laying chickens. So here is what I think might work, let me know what you think about it.

Crossing White Leghorns with White Jersey Giants. Would it be best to retain the bigness to use a Leghorn rooster over Giant hens or the opposite way around Giants over Leghorns?

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I would use a Leghorn rooster on Giant hens or your Leghorn hens would probably get torn up. The offspring should be white with some black dots.

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure about the black dots on them since I would use both breeds that are white.

No treally sure if I'll be doing this or not just thinking about it.

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White Leghorns are generally Silver based Black under Dominant White and White Giants are Silver based Black under Recessive White. So it the first cross of breeding with the White Giants, it would be visually the same as breeding with black. So crossing Dominant White Leghorns with a "Black" bird would give birds that are carrying one copy each of both Dominant and Recessive White. And so being Heterozygous( having on copy) for Dominant White will make them were some black spots show through. If you were to breed those offspring back together, you would get some that are White with the black dotts, some that are clean White ( being pure for Dom and/or Recessive White) and even a chance of some being solid Black ( which may or may not be carrying one copy of Recessive White, but solid black birds would no longer be carrying Dominant White.

I have white leghorn X Jersey Giant (black) hens. I have 4 of them, I think.





You can see a white leghorn hen on the right, compared with 3 of the leghorn/giant crosses here.


They are bigger/heavier than Leghorns but significantly smaller than Giants. Mine were white Leghorn hens x jersey giant rooster.

They are great layers of tinted (very light brown aka beige) eggs and are great broodies.

I hatched out some boys as well, but they were given away before they were eating size.

This was a GREAT cross for me. I also crossed RIR x Jersey Giant and those birds were quite a bit heftier but not broody and not as good of layers.

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White Leghorns are generally Silver based Black under Dominant White and White Giants are Silver based Black under Recessive White. So it the first cross of breeding with the White Giants, it would be visually the same as breeding with black. So crossing Dominant White Leghorns with a "Black" bird would give birds that are carrying one copy each of both Dominant and Recessive White. And so being Heterozygous( having on copy) for Dominant White will make them were some black spots show through. If you were to breed those offspring back together, you would get some that are White with the black dotts, some that are clean White ( being pure for Dom and/or Recessive White) and even a chance of some being solid Black ( which may or may not be carrying one copy of Recessive White, but solid black birds would no longer be carrying Dominant White.

Okay so I now about half way understand. Still not getting the recessive/dominant thing to well, but I understand what you are getting at about the dots showing up. Thanks, I appreciate your help. May try it anyway.

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Thanks for the pictures. Those are pretty hens. I may do the cross, still not sure. I'm thinking about using White Jersey Giant hens under a White LEghorn rosster though, I've heard that the biggers hens usually make chicks that grow put bigger.
That is another thing that I want to see in my layers, better more efficient layers, although I would like a darker (not chocolate) shell egg, for my customers. The experience I have had with Jersey Giants is that they are really great layers, but I like big chickens.

NellaBean said:

I have white leghorn X Jersey Giant (black) hens. I have 4 of them, I think.

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Thank you so much for posting these pictures!
I have several Pearl White Leghorn hens, in with a Rosecomb Brown Leghorn Roo and a Black Jersey Giant Roo (my mom fell in love with him, he was originally supposed to be for the dinner table). My dad (wondering if the brand new incubator would work properly) hatched 8 Leghorn babies out. Of course, since the rosecomb is dominant, it was pretty easy telling who was who.

Curiously enough, the Jersey x Leghorn babies have olive colored legs (which are bent inward at the hocks) and were born much yellower (almost gold and with caramel stripes) than the near-white Rosecomb Brown x White Leghorn babies. I did some research and found out that the Rosecomb Brown x White Leghorns should end up being Pyle.

I was on the chicken calculator trying to figure out what they would look like when full grown, and was coming up with not-so-convincing results. So glad I came across this thread! Several of my babies were born with little chocolate chip speckles, so I believe that they're going to look just like these beautiful girls!

PLease post pictures.

draye said:

PLease post pictures.

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I tried, but it said "A temporary error occurred. Please retry your request.". Got me aggrivated, because I have the CUTEST, BEST QUALITY photos of these youngsters. They are unbelievably cute! I might just upload them to my profile.. maybe then I can provide the link? Not sure..