I want to get some more chickens but dont know what breed?

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Hello there and welcome to BYC!
frow.gif


Great to see another New Mexican on board here!!

My Black Australorps have done very well with the heat and the bitter cold temps. As long as you offer them shade, they do quite well in the heat. Aussies are also very cold hardy and can withstand below zero temps well. I have never had a problem with summer or winter. Buff Orpingtons are also great to tolerate heat and cold. I am raising some Plymouth Barred Rocks this year and so far they are doing very well in the heat. They are known to be cold hardy too.

Here is a couple of nice breeds pages you can look at for all the attributes of the different breeds...

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf

If you use arroyo or dry wash sand as bedding in the coop and run, you can hose it down and the birds stay INCREDIBLY cool even on the hottest days. Put a fan in the coop and run, and with a wet sandy floor, your birds will have cool feet all summer long. Cool feet mean cool birds. :-)

Good luck and welcome to our flock!
 
Welcome. www.mypetchicken.com has a questionnaire on their site. You can answer questions to come up with what would do well in your area.
Our temps the past year ranged from winter nights down to -9* to 100* and humid in the summer. I have a small mixed flock that did well. It includes Easter Eggers, Jersey giants, a buckeye and some mixes. This year I added some marans and a welsumer so we'll see how they do.
I think for cold weather you might want to stay away from the Mediterranian breeds and those with big combs (although I know some how put Vaseline on combs in winter.) Most of the birds with smaller combs seem pretty cold hardy.
Good luck....so many choices...there are still some I want to try.
 
Welcome to BYC! Glad you decided to join our flock. X2 on Black Australorps. I've raised them for many years and they are extremely hardy. I've raised them in northern Kansas where temperatures dropped to 30 F below zero one winter, and in CA where summer temperatures frequently reached 117-118 F (123 F once), and in both climate extremes, they came through like troopers. They are also very calm and gentle. My children, and now my granddaughter, made lap pets of them. And they are the best layers of the standard, brown egg laying breeds. Until it was broken by a caged White Leghorn in 1979, a Black Australorp held the world laying record with 364 eggs in 365 days (still the brown egg laying record), and while I've never had any reach that kind of production (and likely never will), I have still had a few of them lay over 300 eggs in a year. Murray McMurray has an excellent "chick selector" at http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chick_selector.html to help you determine the best breed for you. Just be sure to click on "show more characteristics." Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Whatever breed you end up getting, good luck with your flock.
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! You've gotten some good links and suggestions for breeds above. Easter Eggers are fun because of the colored eggs. If you like colorfully feathered birds, you might also look into the Silver Laced, Gold Laced, and Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Speckled Sussex, and the Plymouth Rocks also come in a bunch of colors.
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

Your best bet on breeds are Buff orps (hardy in cold and hot, great layers, super affectionate) black australorps (same as BOs) speckled sussex (curious, good layers, hardy in cold and hot, friendly) wyandottes (more hardy in cold, great layers, more skittish) barred rocks (curious, friendly, good layers, hardy in heat and cold) EEs (same as barred rocks) and leghorns (hardy in heat, great layers, flighty and skittish.)

Good luck and welcome!
 
Ok thanks for the replies I herd that single colored breeds are better for a pen of egg layers for show and I have a buff orp but she's not laying this summer so I think I may go with black australorps
 
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