The Black Jersey Giant is an old American breed developed as a bird capable of foraging its own food on the homestead.  The breed lays brown eggs and were developed to be a Thanksgiving bird with large breasts.  However, simultaneous with its development, Turkey husbandry was developed leading to Turkey becoming the Thanksgiving tradition and the Black Giant disappearing from the scene.  The Black Giant is a large bird, but it is slow to mature and a slow grower.  However, Cocks can be very large.  Our birds meet the standard for the Black Giant, although we would like to select for larger size simply because we would like to see a monster giant around our place.  They are on a heritage breed listed on the Watch list of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.  The eggs sometimes take 1-2 days longer to hatch (22-23 days) than most breeds (21 days).