Breed Recommendation: Quiet, Hardy vs. Heat & Confinement

[Renee]

How close are your neighbors? (In feet.)

What kind of a coop will you build, and how big will it be? Will you have an outdoor run? Will it be in the shade?

How many chickens do you want, and do you mainly want them for pets or for eggs?

If we have this information, we will be better able to advise you.

I have Wyandottes, and they are not noisy. I can't hear them from inside the house even with all of the doors and windows open, but they are 80 feet away, and there are only two of them.

Their 5x10 coop and 15x15 run is in full shade all day, and they get a bit of a breeze, but one has stopped laying because of the triple digit heat this week. I hose down their run at night so they have moist soil to hunker down in during the day, and I let them forage around in the garden for an hour or two each night. I put iced water bottles in their dirt bath spot.

 

[mkoat]

Quote:
I hear you loud and clear, but my problem exists with the chart itself. The entire report is available online, but the methods or breeds were never extensively discussed. While stress does indeed occur for chickens at high temperatures, and I'm willing to bet that chart is indeed accurate for certain breeds, it is likely less accurate when applied to the entire chicken species - Each genetic strain evolved into its current state differently, and each have developed varying mechanisms and tolerances to various heats and stress levels that likely differ extensively from breed to breed. I grow a ton of plants, and there is a similar chart for pretty much every plant - the problem is that the charts simply do not take in the extensive variables involved with the complexity of living organisms. For example, I know for a fact that substantial laying hens in Mexico can flourish at higher ambient temperatures than here in TX, as seemingly more of the types of chicken breeds that are used in the two areas are better enabled to deal with direct heat as opposed to heat from humidity.

The chart was a good find, and I'll indeed keep it in my notes, many thanks.

As for your last comment, I would argue that it can seem quite sensible depending on your approach. Most people probably do not care either way as to the suffering of their chickens so long as they produce, and I have no reason to believe the chickens in my predicted temperatures will not produce. I personally do not enjoy the idea of the chickens suffering, so as such, I'm making efforts, such as this thread, to better inform myself as to how to alleviate that suffering.

You mentioned yourself that all of your chickens pant, yet do the temps of coops in your area not also rise when full of chickens? While perhaps your area is not as heat intensive as Texas, is it not difficult to confine or even house chickens without contributing somewhat towards their suffering? I suppose we all draw our lines some place, and it seems the temps in Texas combined with a potentially warmer housing is more than you'd willingly put your hens through, but I've been to a number of coops in similar areas with healthy and seemingly happy hens who reportedly had no difference in production or quality from the breed's expectations, and the temps they exist in are much higher than mine ever will. In fact, chickens flourish naturally in temperatures significantly higher than those warned of in the chart you're using - and in fact, when considering how hot Thailand is and how much of the heat is unavoidable humidity, it seems somewhat surprising that chickens even survived this long if the Anderson report was indeed encompassing and accurate. Thailand regularly experiences many days per year of ambient temperatures higher than 100 degrees, and obviously survival was and still is not of significant concern for the Chicken's likely region of origin.

 

[mkoat]

How close are your neighbors? (In feet.)

About 70 feet, but there's quite a bit between the two. If I were to put a medium sized dog in the coop area(gs or so), the barking would not likely bother her. They'll also be lessened with an a/c and a carpenter behind us. To be honest, I could use considerably loud hens so long as they are not consistently loud for extended periods of time. That being said, I'd still like to take the safe route and at least minimize the sound out of consideration - Is the thread I posted the results from earlier accurate in that there is a consensus as to EE breeds being the quietest? The arguments for silkies seem very strong, but is the difference between the silkie loudness and the slightly louder yet more productive *x* that significant?

What kind of a coop will you build, and how big will it be? Will you have an outdoor run? Will it be in the shade?

The coop will be about 40 sq feet, and will have an outdoor run but will only be open during certain times. Most of the warmer periods of the day the chickens will be able to roam and have shade, but some days they will be in the coop all afternoon, which could potentially produce higher temps than outside.

How many chickens do you want, and do you mainly want them for pets or for eggs?

I want at least six to cover the household's current egg consumption, although I've considered as many as ten to cover the potential egg consumption.

 

[mkoat]

Also Renee, would you recommend the Wyandottes at higher temps? And what of the three "quiet" chickens according to Henderson?

Australorp
Belgian D'Uccle or Barbu d'Uccle
Polish

I've seen very little discussion distinguishing these breeds as especially quiet? I sent an email to Hendersen, will post his response.

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Quote:
I have one and only one Polish. A rooster. He does not crow, and he's more than four months old. If the polish hens are quieter than him,

He's a Buff polish. Can't see a thing. I'm not entirely sure he even has eyes. He pants, but not much wing-lifting.


The chart created by BYC'ers is going to be different than Henderson's and every other chart, for the basic fact that everyone on here does not have every breed. Most people have one, two, or even 10 breeds, but not 50. Many have only one or two, and vote for their favorite of those. And the amount of Easter Eggers on here is astronomical, so yes, a lot of people will vote for them because that is what they know. I'm not going to vote a Silkie as being the most quiet because I've never had a silkie. I've never had a noisy hen at all, as a matter of fact.

 

[Judy]

You raise an excellent point about the origins of chickens, and their presumed inherited heat tolerance. I fear that what has not been assessed is how extensively breeding programs have affected, or perhaps not affected, this. Result is, you come here to ask about personal experience. Pretty sad, really, that sound research on this is not readily available. The original bird is, after all, usually called "jungle Fowl."

Let me explain that my chickens are never confined to a coop during the day. I have two flocks. One is free range, has no boundaries, and spends hot days in some nearby woods. The other has a large yard but goes in the coop during the heat of the day because it is shady and cooler than the yard. This coop has a fan running 24/7 this time of year, as well as large areas of walls that are wire rather than solid, so there is a lot of air flow in there. No, temps in my coop do not rise because of the presence of the chickens, as air flow is the primary factor, not their warm bodies. It gets quite warm in there, but it is always cooler than ambient temp.

Now that I understand your situation a little better, I would say that your solution is to build a coop that basically has wire for walls rather than anything solid. I set mine up so that the prevailing winds would blow through it. Hardware cloth, or wire mesh, is just as predator proof as a solid wall, if fastened securely. In a hot climate, the coop and run can be one continuous structure. They do best with a dry place to roost and nest, but it does not have to be sealed off from outdoors, only sheltered.

I think you will find that most people on BYC are extremely mindful of a chicken's comfort.

Here is a thread on hot weather coops, in case you have not seen it, which might contain an idea or two that you will find helpful:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=163417

 

[tulie13]

I haven't seen/read the whole study, but it seems that when they say that "keeping" chickens "at those temperatures" causes those responses, I would guess they are KEEPING the chickens at those temperatures.

In other words, to do a controlled study of temp. vs. response, you pretty much have to have a constant temperature. Your DAYTIME temps may be around 100 F for a few hours, but in the evening if they can cool down again, they may not have the problems described in the study because they aren't KEPT at 100 F. Make sense?

Anyone that has read the study - is this the case? Did they KEEP the chickens at these elevated temps for an extended time (days)?