Black Jersey Giants - Growth Q

[Acre4Me]

We have 2 BJG - one of each male & female. They are 18 weeks old. We have 5 other breeds of regular size chickens - all the same age as the BJG.

Of course the BJGs are larger than the others, although our Black Australorps are larger too, but not as big as the BJG.

My Question is: when do the BJG reach full size?

Below are some pictures of them. You can see the BJG male is larger than the BJG female. Also, The BA male is large, but the BJG Male is larger than the BA. The BJG does not seem to have hit puberty yet...he is pretty docile. Also, the BJG female has not a spec of red on her, so I am thinking it will be quite awhile till we see eggs.

 

[HuskerHens18]

I don't think the female is a BJG. They don't have black skin. If you look at the bottoms of their feet, they should be yellow.
If you got them from a hatchery they won't be anything significant in size. At nearly 2 years old, my Orphington is bigger than my BJG. Beautiful birds though

 

[KikiLeigh02]

I tried looking this up last week because we have two BJG pullets. The most consistent information I found was that the cockerels can take until 8-9 to fully mature. Our pullets are 7 months now, and one of them finally laid her first egg this week! They are so beautiful now, their feathers look like mermaid tail scales. The other one doesn't look to be to far behind her. I'm interested to see what information you get because I was curious too!

 

[Acre4Me]

I don't think the female is a BJG. They don't have black skin. If you look at the bottoms of their feet, they should be yellow.
If you got them from a hatchery they won't be anything significant in size. At nearly 2 years old, my Orphington is bigger than my BJG. Beautiful birds though

Both of the BJG have yellow bottoms to their feet. My BA (3 females and 1 male) all have pinkish feet bottoms. The BJGs are the largest in my flock. I'm just wondering how long till they are fully grown since they don't seem to be finished growing yet and seem to still look immature.

 

[Acre4Me]

I tried looking this up last week because we have two BJG pullets. The most consistent information I found was that the cockerels can take until 8-9 to fully mature. Our pullets are 7 months now, and one of them finally laid her first egg this week! They are so beautiful now, their feathers look like mermaid tail scales. The other one doesn't look to be to far behind her. I'm interested to see what information you get because I was curious too!

Yes, they only general info I've seen is that their frames (bone structure) finish around 8 months (?) and then they may still grow by putting on meat/muscle. I think I read somewhere that a caponized male BJG can get to be 20+ pounds (of course I won't be caponizing the male!!! Since what I read was more general, I figured there may be someone on BYC with experience with BJGs.

 

[HuskerHens18]

Both of the BJG have yellow bottoms to their feet. My BA (3 females and 1 male) all have pinkish feet bottoms. The BJGs are the largest in my flock. I'm just wondering how long till they are fully grown since they don't seem to be finished growing yet and seem to still look immature.

After about a year and a half my last male matured, he seemed to stop growing anyway and finally crowed.

 

[Acre4Me]

After about a year and a half my last male matured, he seemed to stop growing anyway and finally crowed.

Our male BJG hardly crows - we have heard him crow a few times - makes us laugh since he has a deep bass crow. But, we haven't heard him crow since we culled the 2 Dark Brown Leghorn males (aggressive and crowed a lot) and the one male EE. It seemed the male BJG crowed a few times in response to the noisy DBLs, and since they are no longer around, I guess he has nothing to say!

 

[Sylv]

My 3 black Jersey Giant hens aren't much different in size to my Buff Orpingtons. They are probably heavier because the BOs have so much feathering.