West Texas chicken

[jackndonna1982]

What is the best chickens for the heat in west Texas

 

[Ruthster55]

What are your goals in keeping chickens, besides survival in the heat? Eggs? Self-sustaining flock? Meat?

Light breeds would probably be best, if you consider only the heat. That would be breeds like Spanish, Mediterranean breeds, Games of various types, Leghorns.

But if you were interested mostly in eggs, you would chose Mediterranean breeds, Spanish or Leghorns.

If you wanted a self-sustaining flock, Games are where it's at because they are excellent broodies!

Note: none of these are really meat birds or even dual-purpose ---- they're small.

Do you have the room and fencing to deal with flighty chickens? Games aren't quite as flighty as some of the others.

 

[texsuze]

You might consider birds with ample combs and wattles, to help dissipate the heat, too. My black australorps do better than my Ameracaunas, but my BAs are heavier birds, which can present its own problems.

Availability of deep shade on a continuous basis, plus, wetting down some portion of their ranging area daily can help mitigate some of the heat issues.

 

[Alaskan]

As said by others, big combs and wattles help dissipate heat. Clean feet are also good.

I love Leghorns, they come in all kinds of colors, lay like crazy, and are flighty so a bit better predator resistance especially if you get dark browns (those are the flightiest of all of the ones I have tried. I even had one successfully hatch out chicks in my predator filled area)