From heat to invasive species, hardy heritage animal breeds can handle weather extremes that commercial breeds would be vulnerable to.
You only need to look out your window to witness how our world is changing: extreme weather, wildfires, and the explosive spread of invasive plant species that are encroaching on grazing lands and limiting foraging opportunities. Many of these challenges impact poultry and other livestock. Commercial breeds bred for production in highly controlled environments can be particularly vulnerable to these challenges.
The good news is that non-commercial breeds have adapted over centuries to thrive in a wide range of circumstances, many of which are extreme. Choosing animals built for heat or drought tolerance can give producers an upper hand in areas experiencing these challenges. It’s worthwhile to “look outside the box” at animals that may not be the type that once flourished in a region. Researching the origin and background of a breed can help you choose the right fit for your location and situation. There’s a wide diversity of breed options to explore to find animals that’ll make a good fit for the needs of your farm or homestead.
A solution for many circumstances can be found in heritage or “traditional” breeds. Many are rugged and savvy with food resources other breeds can’t take advantage of. They can handle extremes, and their grazing adaptations can be excellent tools for controlling wildfires and the spread of invasive plants. Capitalizing on these natural abilities and adaptations allows farmers to raise livestock with fewer inputs, financial and otherwise.
Poultry Possibilities
Chickens are among the most diverse species of domesticated livestock, yet only a small handful of hybrids make up most of the meat and egg production globally. They can be specialists for eggs or meat, or they can be “all-arounders” that provide both.
The Mediterranean class of chickens was developed in its namesake region of the world, including Italy and Spain. Breeds within the class include Minorca, Leghorn, Catalana, Ancona, Sicilian Buttercup, and Andalusian. These are some of the best-adapted chickens for extreme heat. Many have large combs and wattles, which enable them to radiate heat efficiently. They’re typically large-volume white-egg layers and are expected to thrive in hot, dry summers. The birds are athletic and can jump high. Some even have a limited ability to fly, which can be useful in evading predators. All appreciate plenty of space to roam. Because they’re high-volume egg layers, these birds rarely go broody, so that job would have to be accomplished by a hen of another breed or with an incubator.
The Leghorn is the champion egg layer of the group and can lay more eggs on less feed than any other chicken breed. This is why they’re the foundation of commercial egg production. If you want to take meat production into consideration as well as egg production, pick the Minorca, the largest of this class of birds, with roosters reaching 9 pounds. This makes them nice-sized table birds, dressing out to approximately 6 pounds or more. Catalanas are a little smaller, with roosters reaching 8 pounds, but they still have a respectable carcass size. The Sicilian Buttercup, Ancona, and Andalusian are smaller, but they’re heat-tolerant and lay well.
Where’s the Beef?
Severe drought and heat have weakened the beef industry in hard-hit regions in recent years. One contributing factor is that most commercial cattle have influence from Northern European breeds that were adapted for cooler and wetter climates.
Criollo cattle breeds are the result of Spanish cattle imports in the early American Colonial period in the South. They were adapted to hotter climates, and, since arriving in the Americas, they’ve had centuries to acclimate to some of the harshest terrain for cattle. In the Midwest, these breeds include the Texas Longhorn and the Corriente. Both are superbly adapted to heat and drought. They graze on forages other types of cattle won’t touch, and they manage with less water for days at a time. They can handle rough terrain and need little support from their owners. Criollo cattle are survivors, and, unlike commercial cattle, they’ll often stand against predators to protect their young.
A study published in the Journal of Arid Environments compared the grazing habits of Criollo and Angus cattle. It revealed that Criollo cattle spent more time grazing, less time resting, and covered more ground foraging than Angus cattle. This shows the potential value of Criollo cattle to help strengthen the financial stability of ranching families in the Southwest.
Pineywoods and Florida Cracker cattle are two more breeds of Spanish origin that are adapted to the hot, humid climates of the southeastern U.S. They’ve had hundreds of years to adapt to not only the heat and humidity, but also the parasites of the Deep South. These cattle were some of the last to roam the open range and are to this day still great survivors. Some lines of these cattle even make nice family milk cows.
Noxious Plant Management
The problem of invasive plant species is enormous and affects virtually every environment. High temperatures and natural disasters can change landscapes quickly and are the perfect invitation for invasive species to overrun native plants. Chemical weed control is often used, but alternatives can be provided by livestock species.
Cattle
Ancient White Park cattle are a British meat breed initially developed for cooler climates. They can be managed in moderately warm places, if given a chance. They were treasured as meat animals dating back to the Roman occupation of Great Britain. Aside from their meat production, one notable talent of the Ancient White Park is its appetite for the invasive wild parsnip plant, a noxious weed that painfully burns human skin and can cause blistering with just one touch. The breed’s useful talent was discovered by Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa when it was using its Ancient White Park cattle to graze buffer zones between crops. It found that wherever the cattle went, the parsnips saw their final days in the fields.
The Ancient White Park is best suited to people with cattle experience because of its alert personality. Cattle in a herd will collectively defend calves like musk oxen do, surrounding them in a circle facing outward. This is a beneficial trait in regions with large predators that threaten stock.
Pigs
Before the widespread use of chemical pesticides, pigs were often used in crop fields to root out weeds between growing seasons. Nutsedge is an invasive weed that’s a particular problem in the South. The weeds can grow through weed-blocking plastic and have even been known to break though pool liners. In one University of Florida study, pigs were used in crop fields infested with nutsedge, and researchers found practically no weeds remaining in the field. By the last year of the study, the prevalence of nutsedge was down 48 pecent.
The southern sun can be brutal to pink-skinned pigs, which can get sunburned when out in the field for days on end. Also, with larger pigs comes the risk of compacting the soil. Smaller pig breeds can get the job done and avoid compaction and sunburn. The Guinea hog and the Ossabaw Island hog are smaller pig breeds that are excellent foragers and can root out your weed problems. The Guinea hog is usually black in color, and has an average weight of 150 to 200 pounds. Ossabaw Island hogs come in an array of colors and weigh 150 to 350 pounds. Both have a reputation for producing excellent charcuterie products.
Geese
Geese are another species that can be a particularly effective tool for the eradication of invasive species. Water hyacinth is a big problem in some places, such as Florida and Hawai’i. Its dense foliage shades out native aquatic plants. Mats of hyacinth deposit enormous amounts of rotting plant material, which can affect fish health and contribute methane to the atmosphere.
The Chinese goose is a breed with long roots in America. George Washington was given some for his Mount Vernon home. The breed does well in hot climates and can tolerate the cold, but the fleshy knobs at the tops of their beaks can be prone to frostbite in extremely low temperatures.
The Florida Poultry Research Farm conducted a study on using geese to control water hyacinth. The researchers used White Chinese geese and found that they were effective in controlling weeds, especially in smaller bodies of water, such as farm ponds, irrigation ditches, and drainage ditches.
Like many people in the southeast, Jan Donovan Pelfrey has a problem with invasive kudzu. Her Cotton Patch geese managed to clear 150 feet of kudzu off her fences! They even ate the flowers and seed pods, making them a formidable enemy for kudzu.
Fire Prevention
Wildfires are a fact of life in many parts of the U.S. Shorter spring seasons result in more time for foliage and pine needles to dry out and become excellent fuel for fire. That, coupled with new housing moving closer to wild areas, puts homes and people at greater risk. Thoughtful fire-mitigation grazing has been proven to reduce the threat. This was demonstrated in 2019 when the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum was spared from wildfire thanks to goats that had created a fire break by grazing.
Goats
In sensitive natural areas, choosing smaller goat breeds could do less harm to the land and still serve the intended purpose. San Clemente Island goats are slightly larger than Nigerian Dwarf goats and are slender and agile. The breed developed in isolation on an island where the goats had no choice but to eat forages that might not be desirable to other goat breeds. This makes them useful firefighters for property owners, especially in rocky areas and on cliffs that are inaccessible to some other goat breeds.
Stephanie Bowers of Glorious Goat Ranch in Greenleaf, Wisconsin, uses San Clemente Island goats as part of a buckthorn shrub control program, and she says she often finds them on top of rocks and running up and down cliffs where none of the other goats dared to wander.
Florida has seen its share of wildfires, and the old southeastern strains of Spanish goats are the go-to for browsing. These goats have been kept in the southeast for hundreds of years, and they’re parasite-resistant and smaller than most of the other breeds that were heavily selected for as larger meat animals. These characteristics make them particularly well-suited to clearing areas that are prone to fires.
Sheep
Several breeds of sheep are happy to graze on all kinds of forages versus only eating grass. This includes Santa Cruz sheep, Hog Island sheep, and Jacob sheep. All are smaller breeds and would do the job as well as any goat in fire-mitigation grazing. The bonus with sheep is the fiber they provide beyond their grazing services.
Farming into the Future
There are breeds suited for just about any challenge Mother Nature has in her basket. Finding animals that can work with her instead of struggling against her will help you achieve your goals. Heritage breeds‘ durability and productivity make them a viable solution for the challenges of the present day and into the future.
Jeannette Beranger is the senior program manager for The Livestock Conservancy. She’s a lecturer, writer, and photographer. At home in North Carolina, she practices what she preaches and maintains a heritage-breeds farm with a focus on critically endangered poultry.
Originally published in the June/July 2025 issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS and regularly vetted for accuracy.
