Day Old Naked Neck (Turken) Baby Chicks hatching February to July.
The Naked Neck chicks that we sell are a mixed assortment of colors. You may not choose the color of the chicks.
Naked Neck Chickens may not be the prettiest of chickens and certainly don't look like the ideal chicken you may picture for your flock. But they are a wonderful breed with a ton of benefits for raising them. If you can get over the aesthetic problem of a slightly-bald-looking chicken, Naked Neck Chickens are a top-notch production bird, especially for small farms and homesteads.
Naked Neck Chickens are also sometimes referred to as Turkens or Chirkens as they were sometimes mistakenly thought to be a hybrid between a turkey and a chicken. But this is not true, and these birds are pure chicken.
As their name implies, Naked Neck Chickens have bare necks and 40 to 50 percent fewer feathers than other chickens. The lack of feathering is due to a dominant gene that significantly reduces the density and size of feathers. This lack of feathers makes the birds much easier to pluck for meat purposes. And quicker to pluck as well. Naked Neck Chickens are great meat birds for small operations - there is less need to invest in professional plucking equipment with these birds.
Production: Naked Neck Chickens are very feed efficient. With fewer feathers, there is less need for protein to grow and maintain feathers. This means that the protein being consumed is put toward the production of more eggs and meat. Naked Neck Hens are good layers of large brown eggs and do go broody. Naked Neck Hens usually make good mothers. Naked Neck Chickens grow quite fast to a heavy table weight and have high-quality meat.
Temperament: Naked Neck Chickens are docile and friendly chickens. They are a strong and hardy breed of chicken. They are good foragers. They also tend to be immune to many poultry diseases. These are very heat tolerant and are a very good choice of chicken for warm climates. But, despite the reduced feathering, Naked Neck Chickens are also decently cold tolerant as well.
History: As with many old breeds, the origins of Naked Neck Chickens are murky. Various sources say they originated in Malaysia, Romania, Hungary, and Transylvania. This may also be due to the gene for reduced feathering appearing in a variety of lines of breeds in a variety of places throughout the world. Regardless of where they first appeared, the breed was perfected in Germany in the 1800s and became popular in both Europe and America in the early 1900s.
Conservation Status: Study.
Body Type: Naked Neck Chickens have a fairly standard shape for a chicken raised mostly for meat production. They have a broad back, and they are generally rather large. Naked Neck Chickens come in a variety of colors with single red combs. The exposed skin on their necks turns bright red in the sun, but when not exposed to the sun, it remains pink or yellow. The rest of their skin is yellow.
Weight: Cockerel 7.5 lbs, Pullet 5.5 lbs
APA Class: All Other Standard Breeds, 1965
