Farming Sunday LARGE CHICKEN BREEDS

By Manny Pinol

My Malaysian friends tell me that in the remote areas of Peninsular Malaysia and in the island of Borneo, there is an indigenous breed called the “Kambing Ayam” or the “Chicken.“Goat

It is called such because of a very obvious reason: it weighs as much as 8 kilos which is about the same weight of a small goat.

Even the poultry experts refer to the Malay Chicken as perhaps the biggest chicken breed in the world.

But there are other large chicken breeds.

There is of course the Black Australorp which is not only big but also holds the distinction of being the record holder for the most number of eggs produced in one year. A Black Australorp hen is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as having produced something like 360 eggs in 365 days.

There is another large black chicken breed which really grows fast and is very large: the Jersey Black Giants.

Here is the info on this breed downloaded from the californiahatchery.com:

“The Jersey Giant is a breed of chicken originating in the USA iin the late 19th century by John and Thomas Black. The intent of the breed was the replace the turkey as the primary meat poultry breed. Named after their origin (New Jersey) and their large size. Jersey Giants are largest purebred chicken breed with cocks weighing an average 13 lbs. and hens 11 lbs. The black jersey giant lineage includes were produced by crossing Black javas,, Black langshans, and Dark Brahmas.”

Personally, I have not seen any of these breeds yet and the information I am sharing is based mainly on reports from my Malaysian friends and data available in the different poultry websites.

While these chicken breeds are really huge and one chicken could sufficiently feed a medium sized family in one day, what remains to be discovered, however, would be the acceptability of its taste to the Filipino chicken lovers.

That question notwithstanding, it is easy to conclude that if a Filipino farming family could raise 2 dozen heads of the Ayam Kambing, the Black Australorp or the Jersey Black Giants, hunger would be the least of the problems.

Here are the pictures of the Black Australorp (left) and the Jersey Black Giants (right) downloaded from californiahatchery.com: