Naked Neck Chickens

Day Old Naked Neck (Turken) Baby Chicks 

• Dual purpose
• 200 Eggs Annually
• Docile and friendly
• Cockerel 7.5 lbs, Pullet 5.5 lbs
• APA All Other Standard Breeds
• Conservation Status Study.

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.  There is no "standard" coloration, colors can vary.

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.  Overall very hardy and well rounded breed. 

 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.