Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

:chick96: :chick6: :baby ckick: :chick96:

The last batch of chicks will be three weeks on Sunday, (boy time flies), I am thinking instead of a bigger box to move them into, I am going to move them to the barn. There will be no heat but the barn is warm, also being mixed bantams they are really well feathered, they look more like little song birds and not like baby chicks, some can fly a little more than 2 feet up already. What do you think? If they look cold I could always bring them back in, I just thought it would be easier on the house cleaning lol.

Should be able to move them out especially with this warm weather and they will cuddle together at night.

If they're cold, they will pile which is easy to see (and hear--the ones on the bottom will yell) and you can rescue them to a warmer spot, otherwise weaker chicks will get crushed/smothered. But, the sooner out of the house, the better! Chicks raised 'cool' like I do, with no heat lamps, and heat only provided at night or as needed, will feather faster but grow more slowly than chicks with constant heat... but they do catch up, and in my experience, are strong vigorous birds that shrug off temperature swings.

Mine were out all day at 2 weeks. Little heat at night now at 3 weeks. Should be fine.

Mine only use their woolly Mama for short naps during the day occasionally, and to sleep at night. I've even had to remove a few wool strips so that it's not too warm under there. Biscuit is 12 days old today, Jan and Dean are 10, and I took out the heating pad three days ago. I think yours will be fine, you can always put in a hot water bottle at night if the temperature dips a lot.

Ok thanks gang, I thought they should be fine also but I wanted to see if someone ran into trouble in the past doing this. I am embarrassed to say that when I was a kid and my parents would buy me chicks, I didn't know they were supposed to be under a heat lamp. I kept them in the basement which wasn't that warm and after a few weeks, I put them in the hen house. Funny thing is nobody ever died. These babies are fully feathered like the six week olds. I didn't put them out today since it's almost snowing here. Lol

Every batch of my chicks have gone outside by three days old with their heat plate in their brooder cage in coop. The door is propped open every day (they never get a wind blowing on them) and it's surprising how little time they spend under the heat plate. Through summer the heat plate gets unplugged during the day. My youngest are a week old and spent the day in their Kitty litter box digging at a clump of dirt today even in this cooler weather. My little broody hen dragged her tiny family out in gale force winds to hunt all day. I think us people worry more about temperature than chickens do!