Best High Desert Breeds?

[ChikaD]

The coop is under construction and I'm reading up on breeds. We live in the high desert of southern New Mexico, where summer temps top 100 and winter temps can dip below freezing at night. At every temperature, the weather is dry,sunny, and often very windy. Now, the coop is designed to shelter from the wind and cold in the winter but also convert to be open and airy in the summer. I want hardy breeds with a good heat tolerance, but I don't want them to freeze their little nuggets off in the two months it's actually cold here. Suggestions?

 

[chippy99th]

I'm over in Arizona. We're next-door neighbors!

Buff Orpingtons are my favorite breed. Their fluff keeps them insulated from both the heat and cold, and I've found they do very well in our climate (110's in the summer, usually only goes down to the 40's in the winter but can dip below freezing some nights). I've also had success with Black Australorps, I think for the same reason -lots of insulating fluff. Surprisingly, they do better in the heat than our Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks, even though they are all black. Our old Wellsummers also did really well, although we only had two so that's hardly a lot of experience.

But yeah, I'd recommend Buff Orpingtons to anyone!

 

[BlueBaby]

I'm over here in Arizona too, just south of Phoenix. I also have the Australorps in the Black, Blue, and Splash. They seem to do very well here. I do put in the misting system in the coops run during the high temps in the summer, and also put out extra water pans for them.

 

[ChikaD]

Thank you for the suggestions! I'm like those buff orphingtons, but I've also been looking at buff catalanas. Seems the latter is not popular in the US, but it might be well-suited to my purposes. (I just think the catalana roos are so classic-looking, I love 'em!) I'll post updates and pictures after I complete construction and add birds.