Chicken Breeds that survive cold and heat? Wyandottes vs Australorps vs Rhode Island Reds? Other breeds

[farmland5]

Hello, We live in NJ. We have 3 Columbian Wyandottes and last summer we added 4 Black Australorps chicks. So far the biggest risks to our chickens are the summer heat and red-tailed hawks.

Last year we lost 2 Wyandottes in July to the heat. All got through the cold winter no problem. I am purchasing a few more chicks and considering breeds. But I am concerned about summer approaching. My kids LOVE these chickens.

Are the Rhode Island Reds or Black Australorps likely to do better in the summer heat than the Wyandottes?

Are the Silver Laced or Gold Laced Wyandottes likely to do even worse than the Columbian Wyandottes in the summer do to their darker color?

For whatever reason, the Columbian Wyandottes are still readily available now, but the Silver and Gold laced are not available until late summer. Is there any reason for this beyond appearance?

I wanted to get Black Australorp or Rhode Island Red, but those chicks are already sold out. Our only option is hatching eggs for those....which we could do but we'll have to rehome if we end up with a bunch of roosters.

Any other breeds you recommend? Any other recommendations for surviving the summer heat?

 

[Ridgerunner]

What do your facilities look like and how do you water them? Most chickens can survive your normal hottest New Jersey summer temperatures with shade and plenty of water. Since you lost two due to heat I'd think about this, which is one of your questions.

Where exactly did you lose them? Was there something about where they died that might give you a clue? Were they laying an egg in a nest at the time? The sun can really heat up a coop. If your nests are on the sunny side (mainly south and west in NJ) they may get really hot. Do you need shade on that side or maybe move the nests?

Do they have shade in the run? Sun and the accompanying heat do not just come in from overhead. A covered run might help provide shade but my worst heat is late afternoon. Sun and heat come in from the side. I hung plywood on the west side fence to provide afternoon shade.

Painting your coop a light color instead of dark can help. Dark colors absorb heat, light colors reflect it.

Above all, ventilation. You do not want to create ovens where heat is trapped and can't get away. Can heat escape from your nests? I have an opening at the top of mine. Hot air rises so you need openings up high in your coop for it to escape. It helps to have an opening where cooler air can enter to push that hot air out. That opening should be on the shady side of your coop as that is where the coolest air will be. The taller the area inside the coop is the better. You get more of a chimney effect if you have more vertical distance to work with.

Some people set up fans to blow cool air on them. In hot dry climates some people use a swamp cooler (do a search) to cool the air you blow on them but that works best in a dry climate with low humidity.

I water an area on the ground. I know you are supposed to keep your run dry but in these heat waves the ground usually dries so fast it is not a problem. The evaporating water cools the ground so they can cool off by "dust bathing" or just laying on that damp soil. Many take advantage of that.

I have several shallow water dishes set out for them. In summer use a white bowl to keep that water cooler and try to set it in the shade. In the heat waves I've had a few stand in that water to cool off. Not many but at least it helped a couple.

Which breeds? Most breeds can handle heat and cold fairly well, but for heat the breeds developed in hot climates are often recommended. These chickens usually have a large single comb, large wattles, and a light build. Mediterranean breeds are often recommended for heat but chickens developed in Indonesia or similar places work too.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

I'm a thousand miles south of you by the gulf and I have Brahma, RIR and Wyandottes running around in the middle of summer with zero heat issues. I suspect your chicken set-up may be the issue and not the chickens themselves

 

[farmland5]

Thank you so much for your feedback. These comments were very helpful.

Our coop is walk in height. Its elevated about 2 feet and there is a door along the floor of the coop that allows the chickens to go down into that under area. We lost our first Wyandotte in that under area on day the temp was over 95. She was lying next to the water. I believe she exhausted herself laying an egg and the inside of the coop was way too hot. The other chickens were all panting and we brought them into our kitchen and dipped their feet in water to cool them all down quickly. That coop has shade in the morning but is in the sun in the afternoon. It gets WAY too hot in the summer.

After that day, we bought a chicken tractor and parked it under the thick shade of maple trees. We also set up a fan. We lost our second Wyandotte on another hot day (but not as hot as 95). But it had rained that day and was incredibly humid. The hen we lost was weakened. She had been broody the prior month. Her comb was a little pale and she had lost some weight. But I still think it was the heat/humidity that ultimately killed her.

I really appreciate all the comments. Our main coop is a dark blue and the nesting boxes are on the sun side. I will paint it white. It does have lots of windows but they are kinda low. I will also look to have some windows/ventilation cut near the roof.

Our current coop needs more shade over it. Someone mentioned setting up a angled tarp on posts hanging above our coop's roof ?

The tips on wetting the ground, or using a white dish, etc, are really easy and helpful. I will for sure implement those tricks this summer. Someone told me to feed the hens frozen watermelon balls too?

We have thought about just buying an entirely different coop/large shed and/or buying a very large chicken tractor.

Our water system also needs improvement. Right now we just have the stand waterers from Tractor Supply. Even when raised several inches, they are a problem when the chickens kick their pine chips/dirt into them. In the winter, the waterers worked fine but are a pain when it freezes because its hard to get them open. So we are VERY open to new suggestions to improve our water system.

I really want to prevent any more totally preventable deaths so again, I really appreciate the tips.

I guess I'll go ahead and order a couple Wyandotte chicks. The kids want a few Columbians to replace the 2 we lost. Any thoughts on the Silver laces or Gold Laced struggling more in the heat due to their color?

 

[K0k0shka]

Put a thermometer in the coop to monitor just how hot it gets, and check it at different times of the day AND at night, well into the night, too! You'll be shocked just what a furnace a coop can become. Even if you do everything right, it can still be way hotter inside than it is outside, and if you don't have a good setup it can become downright dangerous.

I learned this the hard way even when I had a good setup. I had a spacious walk-in coop in full, thick, all-day shade, with more than 1 square foot of open ventilation per chicken, coop size at more than 4 square feet per chicken, etc - everything checked out. But I noticed that my chickens were panting at night, so I put a thermometer in the coop and I was floored by the numbers. It read 120 degrees F in there at midnight, when the ambient temperature outside had dropped to the 70s after only rising to the high 80s during the day! Coops trap heat and hold it, and you need to be VERY proactive to avoid that. What I did in my case is I replaced my solid human access door with a screen door. It was a full size door from a human house, so a large area. I built a screen door out of 2x4's and hardware cloth. So that was a LOT of extra ventilation that was opened up. I also added two fans - one in a window, blowing at the roosts, and another one up at the vents, blowing across (my year-round vents are under the eaves - the tops of the walls are open about half a foot, all the way around the whole coop). It made a HUGE difference! I change out the screen door with the solid door in October and keep it on for winter (I'm in MA so we have winters), and then change it back to the screen door in May and keep that on for the hot season.

I recommend the wetting the ground method, but wet a lot of it, not just a puddle somewhere. I take the garden hose into the run and just spray most of the area down until it forms lots of puddles. I have a rich, varied substrate that drains well, so the puddles don't stay puddles for long, but the chickens absolutely LOVE sloshing through the water! They will not step in a dish of water (I've tried all kinds of shallow containers), but they will happily walk around and scratch in a puddle. That helps cool down their feet, and from there, their bodies as well. When the water soaks in and the puddles disappear, the chickens enjoy digging trenches in the cool dirt and laying in them to cool down further.

 

[StacyT]

I have golden laced wyandottes and summer here can reach up to 120. Provide plenty of shade and cool water along with wetting the ground. Any signs of distress and I dunk them into a pool of cool water for a bit. I also put blue ice into their water to keep cool longer. Any coops that get hot I place a fan.

 

[Mrs. K]

It is really not the birds coloring but their combs and wattles that effect their temperature.

I will point out that some birds just die rather suddenly, it might have been on a hot day, but not because it was hot.

Shade and water have worked for me. But we tend to be a dry heat.