Poultry
Grey Dorking
B tier
Grey Dorking (often Silver-Grey Dorking) is a classic colour variety of the ancient English Dorking table breed, showing silver-grey plumage patterning on a rectangular five-toed body with short white or flesh-coloured legs. Like other Dorkings, it was refined in Surrey as a fine-fleshed roasting fowl rather than an extreme egg machine. Culinary use favours whole roasting, pot-roasting, and traditional English boiled fowl, with mild white flesh, even breast and leg meat, and good skin. Birds mature more slowly than industrial broilers and are marketed as heritage premium table poultry when available.
Also known as: Silver-Grey Dorking, Grey Dorking, Silver Gray Dorking, Grey Dorking
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Characteristics
Preparations
Traits
Grading systems
Grades are placed along a shared scale so systems can be compared side by side.
History
Five-toed Roman-British table fowl in southern England formed the basis of later Dorking types.
Silver-grey and coloured Dorkings from Surrey supplied London markets for white-fleshed table birds.
Poultry shows formalised Silver-Grey Dorking as a leading exhibition and table colour variety.
American Poultry Association recognition spread Grey and other Dorking varieties in North America.
Rare-breed programmes conserved Grey Dorking lines after commercial broiler dominance.
Heritage poultry projects maintained Grey Dorking as a flagship English table variety.