The first time that I stocked a chicken coop from scratch I dove right in with an assortment of different breeds and varieties. Now the chicken is an all around hardy creature. It's hard to get poultry farming wrong. That's true at least on the modest scale that I was working. Despite more modest knowhow things worked out. Here's what I learned.
I noticed right away that some of breeds handled Florida's intensely hot weather better than others. A few of the larger girls made a whole day out of finding a spot to have a good pant in a shady dustbowl. Others roamed more freely in mini-flocks that formed around each rooster.
If I had it to do over today these are the breeds that I would consider best suited to very hot weather. The number one pick on this list is the obvious answer to very many chicken rearing situations, but below I also give some less common options.
These fare very well in the heat but can also add color, variety, or different temperament. My focus here has been on the most interesting choices that can take the heat not merely the most productive from a farming perspective.
5.) The Black Sumatra
Photo by avflores [CC0] from Pixabay
This breed comes from a southeast Asian island where the heat is nearly constant. It is a graceful fowl with a long lustrous tail of greenish-black plumes. It has smaller comb and wattles. And it is a rare domestic breed, much sought after for its aesthetics and as a pet.
We had a Sumatra, Henrietta, in our early flock. I can agree she was among the more comfortable birds in the southern heat. Because she had more energy and relaxed throughout the day this enhanced her already favorable disposition.
She did not lay a lot of eggs but helped us to find the flock in the evenings as she was usually eager to be handled or hand fed. Long feathers and strong wings helped her and the Sumatra rooster to reach higher perches in our broad live oaks. This aided the nighttime vigilance of the flock.
Male Sumatras are highly competitive, though they seldom fight other cocks to the death. Accordingly they are great protectors of hens and young adding to this breed's all around characteristics for free ranging.
4.) The White Sultan
Image adapted from a photo by Eunice [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons
Sultans are a venerable breed with roots in southeastern Europe. They take their peculiar name because they were a popular ornamental bird for gardens of the Ottoman sultanate. This docile and exotic breed has a crest, muff, beard, feathered shanks, and — very unusually — a fifth toe.
Sultans were exported from Istanbul in 1854 at the behest of Elizabeth Watts. The breed was known in the Americas within two decades. Even the full sized white Sultan is quite small. They are also known in an even smaller bantam variety.
A mostly ornamental bird hens will lay relatively few small white eggs. White Sultans are very gentle, friendly birds, and are easily kept in confinement without stress. While they tolerate heat exceptionally well this might be offset by the extra care owed to their ample and elaborate plumage.
3.) The Lakenvelder
Photo by Micha003 [CC0] from Wikimedia Commons
One of the most stunningly beautiful in appearance of the heat tolerant varieties the Lakenvelder is well known for its handsome black and white coloring and slate hued legs. They originate in Germany and Holland .The word lakenvelder alludes to the word sheet and field in Dutch.
I have heard many poetic translations of this name. Truth be told I think it simply refers to the belted or sashed color pattern, as dutch cattle with the same pattern are also called Lakenvelder.
Another small breed that matures to about 1.4 - 1.8 kg. They are fast runners and the farthest ranging birds on this list if allowed to roam—an approach for which they are as well suited as their gamebird like stature suggests.
2.) The Golden Campine
Photo by Lydia Jacobs [CC0 Public Domain]
Here's an ancient and rare breed that originated in Belgium. The golden campine will show off a gorgeous pairing of lustrous black and golden bay feathers to create its characteristic barring. Even as hatchlings these birds are highly colorful. The bright zigzag pattern of black, brown, and white portends the showy future of this prized and exotic breed that is often kept for show.
Despite its smaller size golden campine hens can be expected to lay a few medium sized eggs weekly. It's included on this list for those in a hot climate that prefer a smaller, showier bird.
1.) The White Leghorn
Photo by Bodlina [CC BY-SA 3.0] from Wikimedia Commons
When I first became interested in raising chickens I had figured the term leghorn was some sort of reference to spurs. After all these sharp horn-like protrusion on the legs of some chickens are used for fighting predators and contesting territory. And some of my leghorn roosters and hens have indeed had examples of long, fierce spurs. Many however had only vestigial buds.
In any case the historical record shows that Leghorn is really an anglicized name for the Italian port city of Livorno. It's from that Tuscan port city which the ancestors of the modern Leghorn were shipped to the United States in the mid-19th century. In fact early on the breed was known simply as the Italian.
Since then the white variety of this breed has risen to be the most commercially successful type of the world's most prolific and dispersed domestic animal. There are around 20 billion chickens in the world. Most of the eggs humans eat are laid by white leghorns. And that is no surprise given the dominance of positive over negatives when it comes to this hardy bird's traits.
Like all the birds on this list the white leghorn is well suited to hot environments. Unlike the others it also handles colder seasons alright too, making this breed a good choice for homesteads that face seasonal extremes. They mature quick and may begin laying a week or two earlier than many other breeds.
Its eggs are larger and it's the only fowl on this list that tends to lay eggs in the extra large category — about 64 grams per egg on average. A final advantage of the white leghorn is that, while it is not the best all around meat chicken, it still does produce a very good meat yield for a laying chicken.
Lead Image credits—remixed from public domain works via Wikimedia Commons and Pixabay