Buff Orpington vs Jersey Giant: A Big Hen and a Giant One

Pick the Buff Orpington if you’d like eggs at around five to seven months and a hen that’ll probably hatch chicks for you. Pick the Jersey Giant if you want the heaviest chicken breed there is, you can wait a lot longer for that first egg, and you don’t mind lowering your roosts and nest boxes to suit her. And don’t expect the egg counts to settle it for you. The sources overlap so much there that they pretty much cancel out.

I rewrote this page from 15 sources, and you’ll find every one listed at the bottom. Most of the breed facts come from The Livestock Conservancy, from Meyer and Cackle (both hatcheries sell both birds) and from McMurray’s Buff page, plus a comparison Gail Damerow wrote for Cackle’s blog. University extension pages gave me the history, the housing numbers, broody hens and frostbite. USDA’s own egg standard covered egg sizes. But these sources don’t always agree with each other (a couple don’t even agree with themselves), so I’ll tell you whose number each one is.

A word on the photos, before you go looking for a Jersey Giant in them. No free photo of a Buff Orpington or a Jersey Giant passed our photo checks, so none of the birds on this page is either breed. The big black rooster at the top was at a USDA Egg Day event in Washington, D.C., and USDA didn’t name his breed. The gold birds and the black hen are Saxon chickens, an old German breed, all shot by one photographer, Pedalito, and shared on Wikimedia Commons. If you’d like to see the real thing, the Province of Ontario made school slides of both breeds, probably in the 1920s. Its Jersey Black Giants and its Buff Orpingtons are on Commons too.

The short version.

• Size. A Jersey Giant hen runs about 10 pounds and a Buff hen about 8, so the Giant hen is roughly 25 percent heavier by my math. Roosters run about 13 and 10.
• Eggs. The yearly counts overlap almost completely. Cackle, which sells both, gives 180 to 260 for the Giant and 150 to 280 for the Buff, both marked “estimates only.”
• Time. The Conservancy says Giant hens start laying between 8 months and a year, while Meyer says Buffs start at 20 to 24 weeks.
• Broody. Everybody calls the Buff broody. Giant hens vary (and they’re heavy enough to crush their own eggs).
• Weather. Both handle cold well. The Giant handles heat worse.
• Housing. You’ll want lower roosts and a bigger, lower nest box for a Giant. Meyer adds a pop door wide enough for her.

Two Breeds Built for the Table

Both breeds started out as dinner. William Cook was a coachman in the Kentish town of Orpington, England, and The Livestock Conservancy says he crossed Minorca roosters with Black Plymouth Rock hens, then crossed their offspring with clean-legged Langshans. He introduced the Orpington in 1886. American dual-purpose breeds were just reaching England back then, and the British didn’t care for their yellow skin. So Cook went after a hardy, fast-growing bird that laid well and still had the table qualities the British market wanted. His first Orpington was black. Illinois Extension says the Buff and the White came from other crosses, and that Cochin blood went into some early Orpington strains (it points to the more loosely feathered birds as the evidence). The American Poultry Association took the Buff into its Standard in 1902.

The Jersey Giant is American. John and Thomas Black developed it between 1870 and 1890 in Burlington County, New Jersey, near Jobstown, to replace turkeys as a premium table bird, according to the Conservancy. They worked from Black Javas, Black Langshans and Dark Brahmas. Meyer’s breed spotlight adds that the brothers specialized in caponizing roosters to make big roasting birds. Around 1895 the birds got called “Black Giants,” and the Conservancy is clear that was in honor of the Black brothers, not the feather color. Then Dexter P. Upham of Belmar, New Jersey, changed the name to “Jersey Giant.” A breeders’ club adopted it in 1921, and the APA recognized the black in 1922, the white in 1947 and the blue in 2003. Illinois Extension notes that Cornish blood went into some strains later, and that the white Giants started out as sports of the black.

One status note. The Conservancy’s own page lists the Jersey Giant as Recovering, while Meyer’s chick page says “Watch.” The Orpington came off the Conservancy’s priority list in 2016. And about that rooster up top: I wouldn’t call him a Jersey Giant. His legs are pale and there’s silver in his neck feathers, while the Conservancy gives the black Giant black legs with yellow soles and Damerow describes them as black to dusky yellowish-green.

How Big Is a Giant?

Here’s what each source gives for grown birds, so you can see how close they run.

• The Livestock Conservancy, Jersey Giant: roosters 13 to 15 pounds, hens 10 to 11, with the black about a pound heavier than the white. Males stand 22 to 26 inches tall, and hens 16 to 20.
• Meyer and Cackle, Jersey Giant: hens 10 pounds, roosters 13. Cackle’s page says males from its own bloodline run about 11 to 14.
• The Conservancy, Orpington: males typically 10 pounds, females 8.
• The three hatchery Buff pages I read (Meyer, Cackle, McMurray): the same 10 and 8.

So a Giant hen outweighs a Buff hen by about 2 pounds, roughly 25 percent, and a Giant rooster outweighs a Buff rooster by about 3 pounds, or 30 percent. That’s my arithmetic, not theirs. Damerow calls the Jersey Giant “our heaviest chicken breed,” and Meyer calls it the largest dual-purpose breed. But a Buff can look closer to that than she is. Meyer says they get called “Big Buffs” because they’re loosely feathered and “appear to be heavier than their true weight.” Turns out a fair bit of that Buff is fluff.

You can tell them apart by more than size, too. The Conservancy describes the black Giant’s “beetle green” sheen, black legs with yellow soles, no feathers on the legs and a red single comb. Damerow says the Standard of Perfection calls for six well-defined points on that comb, though she admits real combs often don’t fit the description. Giants have yellow skin, going by Meyer and Illinois Extension. Buffs have white skin, and McMurray calls it pinkish white. As for the hen above, she’s a black Saxon. You can spot it by her white earlobe, since Meyer lists red lobes for the Jersey Giant.

The Egg Counts Overlap

Here’s what each source says a hen lays, in its own terms. Read it through and you’ll see my problem.

• The Livestock Conservancy, Jersey Giant: about 150 to 200 eggs a year, extra-large, from dark brown to light cream. It also says the hens “tend to lay more eggs than other heavy breeds.”
• Gail Damerow on Cackle’s blog: 175 to 185 a year on average, with Cackle’s production-bred line laying as many as 260.
• Cackle’s Jersey Giant page: 180 to 260 a year, “estimates only,” egg size large.
• Meyer, Jersey Giant: 3 to 5 large brown eggs a week on its chick page, 3 to 4 a week in its breed spotlight.
• Cackle’s Buff Orpington page: 150 to 280 a year, also “estimates only.”
• Meyer, Buff Orpington: 4 to 6 brown eggs a week.
• McMurray, Buff Orpington: production rated “good,” egg size large, no yearly number.
• The Conservancy, Orpington: “first-rate layers of large light to dark brown eggs,” with no yearly number either.

Put Cackle’s two ranges side by side and the Buff’s runs both lower and higher than the Giant’s. Meyer’s weekly numbers lean toward the Buff, but by one egg a week at most. Honestly, I wouldn’t pick either breed for the egg count. Size is a little clearer. Three of these sources call the Giant’s eggs extra-large (the Conservancy, Damerow, Meyer’s spotlight). Two say large: Meyer’s chick page and Cackle’s chart. Cackle’s chart says large for the Buff as well, but then its own Buff page says the Buff “lays medium brown eggs” and that “a bigger hen does not always lay a bigger egg.” Georgia Extension calls the Orpington’s eggs large to medium.

USDA puts a number on “extra-large,” and it’s smaller than you’d think. Its shell egg standard says a dozen extra-large eggs must weigh at least 27 ounces, a dozen large at least 24 and a dozen jumbo at least 30. By my math, that’s 2.25 ounces an egg for extra-large and 2.5 for jumbo. So an extra-large Giant egg is a bit bigger than a large one from the store, not double. The same standard judges an egg’s insides as it’s “twirled before the candling light,” and that’s the kind of light Jerri Parker is using above, on her Oklahoma farm, to check eggs for cracks. You’ll find more on a laying hen’s year in our post on Rhode Island Red egg production.

The First Egg Comes Later

This is where the two really split. The Conservancy says Jersey Giant hens “start to lay between 8 months and a year of age, though some owners have reported their hens laying at 5 months.” Meyer’s Jersey Giant page lists laying maturity at 16 to 24 weeks — far earlier than anyone else’s number. Cackle just says the birds are “slower to mature than many production breeds.” I’d plan around the Conservancy’s figure, and if your hen starts sooner, count it as luck.

Buffs are quicker. Meyer gives 20 to 24 weeks. McMurray’s chart says 20 weeks to maturity, and its own answers on that page say “Orpingtons start laying at 5-7 months of age.” Georgia Extension says they “mature moderately early.” So take the Conservancy’s 8 months (about 35 weeks) against Meyer’s 20 to 24 for the Buff, and the Giant starts 11 to 15 weeks later. If your Giant waits a full year, it’s 28 to 32 weeks later. Both of those are my math.

Meat runs on the same slow clock. The Conservancy says most Giants “take up to 8 to 9 months to reach a harvestable size” and calls them a slow-growing breed with poor feed-to-meat conversion, so you’re feeding a lot of grain to get there. Meyer’s spotlight says the frame grows first and the weight comes after, and its chick page puts processing at 32 to 36 weeks. For the Buff, Meyer says 20 to 24 weeks, and McMurray suggests butchering at around 16 to 20. One more thing from Cackle, in case you raise black Giants from chicks: some show white feathers in their first and second feathering, and Cackle says not to worry, since they should be solid black by about 6 months. The chicks above are Saxon and Krüper chicks at 25 days old, going by their photographer.

Both Can Go Broody

A broody hen sits tight on a nest and stops laying. Arizona’s extension service says she’ll leave the nest only once or twice a day to eat and drink. If you want chicks without an incubator, that’s handy. If you want eggs, it’s lost laying time.

On the Buff, the sources all agree.

• McMurray: “extremely likely” to sit, and “excellent setters and mothers.”
• Meyer: “very broody.”
• Cackle: “Setter” in its chart, and Orpington hens “often go broody and can make excellent mothers for baby chicks.”
• Georgia Extension: “The hens are excellent mothers.”

On the Giant, they don’t. Meyer’s chart says “Broody: Yes,” and Cackle’s says “Setter.” But the Conservancy says “Some Jersey Giant hens go broody and some do not,” so you’ll want to check with whoever you buy from if you care either way. Damerow, comparing the Giant with the Australorp, says hens of both breeds tend toward broodiness, though production lines get bred to be less broody. And she points out a catch the Conservancy agrees on: Giant hens are heavy enough to break or crush eggs in the nest. Their eggs can take a day or two longer to hatch, too.

If a hen goes broody and you don’t want chicks, Arizona describes “broody jail,” a wire-bottomed dog crate or small cage where she has food and water but nothing to nest in. It says 3 to 7 days is usually enough. The broody hen above is a Saxon, by the way. Her photographer shot her with two day-old chicks the same evening.

Cold Winters, Hot Summers

Both birds are built for cold. The Conservancy calls the Jersey Giant “a very cold-hardy breed” and says the hens generally lay through winter. McMurray rates the Buff’s cold tolerance excellent and calls Buffs “excellent winter layers, shelling out brown eggs right through cold weather.”

The weak spot in winter is the comb. The Conservancy warns that a Giant rooster’s large single comb “can be subject to frostbite.” Jacquie Jacob of the University of Kentucky says frostbite turns into a problem at “single digits and below,” more likely at night, in a cold, poorly ventilated coop with damp bedding. It’s most common in roosters, she says, since their combs are bigger. If one of yours gets frostbitten, she says to warm it slowly and skip direct heat like a hair dryer or heat lamp. She also calls heat lamps a fire hazard, so think hard before you hang one. Our post on chicken coop insulation ideas has more on winter coops.

Heat is where they part. The Conservancy says Giants “do not do well in the heat, so they must have options to keep them cool in warm climates.” Damerow calls the Giant “much less” heat tolerant than the Australorp. McMurray rates the Buff’s heat tolerance good. Cackle says Buffs can handle warm weather with proper care, though their big, fully feathered bodies make shade and moving air (and cool water) matter more in hot weather. In a hot summer I’d give both breeds a shaded dust bath like the one these Saxons are using, and give the Giant more of it.

A Coop Sized for a Giant

A Jersey Giant can live in a regular coop, but the Conservancy says you’ll need to change a few things. She needs bigger nest boxes and more room on the roost, and the bars should be lower, because heavy birds can hurt their legs jumping down. It adds that if anything sharp sits under the perch and a bird lands on it, the hurt foot can lead to bumblefoot.

Here’s how the numbers line up, so you only have to build once.

• Roost height. Meyer’s spotlight says no more than 2 feet off the ground for Giants. Cackle’s chart lists 2 to 4 feet, yet its own Giant page recommends “low to moderate roost height” so heavy birds don’t hurt their legs. Penn State Extension goes further: it says perches “should not be used with large structured or meaty breeds” at all, and that no chicken should perch more than 4 feet up.
• Roost space. Penn State gives standard chickens 6 inches each, with roosts a foot apart and 18 to 24 inches off the floor. The Conservancy just says Giants need more.
• Nest boxes. Penn State says at least 12 by 12 inches, and bigger for larger birds. Meyer says 16 inches square for Giants, set low or even on the ground. That’s 256 square inches against 144, about 78 percent more floor, by my math.
• Doors. Meyer says to make sure any pop door is large enough for the birds to get outside comfortably.

There’s one clash you should know about. Penn State’s general rule puts nests at least 2 feet off the ground, and Meyer wants them lower for Giants. For a 10-pound hen, I’d go with Meyer. And if you keep both breeds, a roost at 18 to 24 inches fits Meyer’s 2-foot limit for the Giant and Penn State’s range for standard chickens. You’ll find more layouts in our chicken roost ideas and chicken coop ideas posts. The rooster above is a Saxon, standing in an aviary doorway with a ramp up to the coop behind him.

Calm Birds, With a Few Catches

The sources agree both breeds are calm. The Conservancy says Jersey Giants are “calm and docile,” get along with other breeds, and some tolerate other roosters. Meyer’s spotlight calls the black Giant non-aggressive and says roosters tend to get along with each other. Georgia Extension calls the Orpington “the big friendly bird,” and Meyer calls Buffs “the perfect breed for children.”

Still, each one comes with a catch. Georgia Extension says Orpingtons are “easily bullied,” so watch them if you mix them with pushier breeds (it also says they adapt readily to confinement). The Conservancy says Giants “can be noisy and may not be a good choice if you have close neighbors.” It also says they do well against predators, the black and blue birds better than the white, and because they’re big, some will fight back. Meyer thinks Giants are a good breed for kids in a backyard flock, but maybe not for kids who plan to show their birds, because of the size. They “generally don’t fly,” the Conservancy says, but some have gone over a fence when something caught their eye.

Roosters are worth planning for, too. Cackle lists gender accuracy at 80 to 85 percent for its Giant chicks and 85 to 90 for its Buffs. So if you order 10 pullets, up to 2 Giant cockerels (or 1 or so Buff ones) would still be within the accuracy it states, by my math. A Giant rooster at 13 pounds or so is a lot of bird for a small flock. If you’re still weighing the Buff against other breeds, our post on Buff Orpingtons vs Australorps does the same kind of side-by-side.

So, Which One?

Here’s how I’d sort it out for you.

• Pick the Buff Orpington if you’d like eggs at around five to seven months, or a hen to hatch chicks for you. She fits a standard coop, and McMurray rates her heat tolerance good.
• Pick the Jersey Giant if you want the biggest bird and can wait 8 months or longer for eggs. You’ll want lower roosts and bigger, lower nest boxes, and keep in mind the Conservancy calls the breed noisy.
• Either one works in a cold winter. In a hot summer, both need shade, and the Giant needs more of it.
• For the table, the Buff gets there sooner: 20 to 24 weeks against 32 to 36, going by Meyer’s processing ages. The Giant ends up a much bigger bird, though.

If neither one sounds right, our Chicken Breed Finder can point you to a different breed. For more head-to-heads with the Buff, see Rhode Island Red vs Buff Orpington and Buff Orpington vs Buff Rock. One last thing, since I promised to be straight about the photos. The mother hen with her half-grown chicks above is a Saxon too.

Sources

• The Livestock Conservancy: Jersey Giant Chicken.
• The Livestock Conservancy: Orpington Chickens.
• Meyer Hatchery: Black Jersey Giant Day Old Chicks.
• Meyer Hatchery blog: Breed Spotlight, the Black Jersey Giant (October 2020).
• Meyer Hatchery: Buff Orpington Day Old Chicks.
• Cackle Hatchery: Black Jersey Giant.
• Cackle Hatchery: Buff Orpington.
• Gail Damerow on the Cackle Hatchery blog: Chicken Breed Spotlight, Australorp or Black Jersey Giant.
• Murray McMurray Hatchery: Buff Orpingtons.
• University of Illinois Extension: History of Breeds.
• University of Georgia Cooperative Extension: Which Breed of Chicken Should I Put in My Backyard Flock? (PDF, January 2009).
• Penn State Extension: Small-Scale Poultry Housing.
• University of Arizona Cooperative Extension: Nine Common Reasons Your Hens Aren’t Laying (az2186).
• Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky, on the Poultry Extension site: Frostbite in Chickens.
• USDA Agricultural Marketing Service: AMS 56, the shell egg standard with its weight classes (PDF, July 20, 2000).

Sources checked October 26 and 27, 2026. The percentages, the egg weights, the week counts and the cockerel counts are my math from the sources’ own numbers. We aren’t vets. If a hen looks sick, call a vet who sees poultry.

Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe