Jersey Giant??

I have written a post similar to this one about the same girl, but now she's seven months old and much, MUCH bigger. Onxy, my black pullet, is bigger than even my oldest girls, which are around eight months old. Before, people said that she was an Australorp since she had white bottoms on her feet. And with much struggle, I was able to measure her at 23 inches tall (and that's not even with her neck stretched all the way up).



This is the contrast between Onyx, my oldest hen Orchid (the white Leghorn), and my third oldest Rose (the Rhode Island Red). Onyx towers over the other girls and Orchid head just barely clears the height of Onyx's shoulder.



So is Onyx a Jersey Giant? Or do Australorps get this big?

Australorps CAN be very large. There is no such thing as a Jersey Giant with white-bottomed feet (that I know of).



^ Those are Jersey Giant feet... no mistaking it.


^ Australorp feet.

So unless you've got a mixed breed, that's an Australorp.

I have Australorps, and they are HUGE. My big rooster probably weighs 8 lbs, and he's not fully mature yet. They are smaller than a JG (which can be a large as a frikkin' turkey!), but they are considered large, standard fowl.

Hope that helps!

MrsB

She looks just like my BJG hens, I never checked the bottoms of thier feet but they do make my RIW roo look little!

MrsBrooke said:

Australorps CAN be very large. There is no such thing as a Jersey Giant with white-bottomed feet (that I know of).

^ Those are Jersey Giant feet... no mistaking it.

^ Australorp feet.

So unless you've got a mixed breed, that's an Australorp.

I have Australorps, and they are HUGE. My big rooster probably weighs 8 lbs, and he's not fully mature yet. They are smaller than a JG (which can be a large as a frikkin' turkey!), but they are considered large, standard fowl.

Hope that helps!

MrsB

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X 2 - as for comparison to the leghorn, that is like comparing apples to oranges because the two breeds are so vastly different, so has no impact on breed assessment for your Onyx.

Then again, I read in your other post that you got her from a hatchery... The distinct feet work well for determining differences, but with hatchery stock, they aren't necessarily breeding for show traits, so yellow feet in JG may have been ignored in favor of something like growth rate or egg production.

Well.

I guess you'll have to see. An Australorp hen weighs anywhere from six to eight pounds... A Jersey Giant hen can weigh ten or more pounds.

Sometimes with hatchery stock, you can only wait and see!

I hope it turns out the way you want it to.

MrsB

Well I got her from a feed store that doesn't really care to know what breeds of chickens that they get. I was even lucky enough to get a Sultan, which I read was a rare breed. He was the only chick that breed in the whole group of 50. I wouldn't call the feed store a hatchery though... all they had was chicks ranging from a week to a month or two. I just know she weighs a lot and is really tall. I didn't know Australorps can get that big too

blackwingedwolf said:

Well I got her from a feed store that doesn't really care to know what breeds of chickens that they get. I was even lucky enough to get a Sultan, which I read was a rare breed. He was the only chick that breed in the whole group of 50. I wouldn't call the feed store a hatchery though... all they had was chicks ranging from a week to a month or two. I just know she weighs a lot and is really tall. I didn't know Australorps can get that big too

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Ah! I meant feed store. Who knows... Maybe they got an errant Giant, and you took her home!

Australorps can be very large! They're also very docile and sweet. We stuck four five-month-olds and six three-month-olds together using the "slip them in at night while everyone is asleep" method, and whether it was the nice-ness of the Australorps or our plan that did the trick, no one has scuffled once!

Way to go on the Sultan!!!

I forget... Were you after a JG or BA?

MrsB

Well, I had no idea what i was going after actually since the Feed Store had a bunch of different ones, I have a Leghorn, a Red-Star, Two Rhode Islands (from a different feed store that only sells female Rhode Islands), a Hamburgh (i think), a Sultan (that i had to get rid of because he was a rooster and i can't have roosters :'( i miss him), a rhode island mix (i think), and then Onyx. I don't know what she is, but knowing her breed may help get her more settled. If it helps, she's the only one that shows complete aggression to the rhode island mix. The poor chick will run away if Onyx even looks at her. Onyx has just started laying not that long ago, she laid her second egg yesterday and she's just too big for the box and we are letting her use the dust box as a nest until we figure out what to do for her.


I saved her from a 10x10 cage that housed about 80 other chicks. Very bad conditions and she was scrawny with feathers pulled out and ruffled. She grew quick in the first couple of months that i had her.

Looking good !!!

Another way to tell the difference is eye color.

Australorps have very dark (almost black) irises... JGs usually have yellow eyes.

Again, though, that is breed-standard... A quality that could have been overlooked in the pursuit of a production bird. No idea if your feed store chicks were bred for those standards, or if you have some kind of mutt.

Any idea where the store got the chicks from?

I have NO doubt that whatever breed she is, she is MUCH better off with you!

MrsB