When are chicks ready to be brought outside

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Mine get part time broader parole starting at 3 to 4 weeks on the weekend in a small outdoor pen. At 5 weeks they go to there coop for lock up about 3 days to get use to there new home. Then daily access to the out side every day by 6 weeks. This works really good for them so far.
 
remember there wild animals and mama takes them out after a few days....then back in ect... so anytime its warm outside after there couple weeks old is not to soon...jeff
 
Alia said:
I raised pet chickens as a child, so when I came home from school I'd give them "outy" time until it started getting dark. Supervised of course.

To answer the question I guess it depends on what temperature it is outside. If it's warm I don't see why they can't be out from day 1.
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Yeah. I personally think chicks are tougher than we make them out to be. I mean, the momma hens take their babies out scratching a few days old, when they're still covered with down. She warms them up after a few minutes of foraging, but they survive- even thrive!
 
I use hay as bedding for my babies and I find it only needs to be changed about 1 a week (20 birds ranging from 2 weeks to 6).
I also took two large rubbermaid tubs for storing junk in and cut a big hole in the sides and bolted the two together to make a bigger brooder. Couldn't find anything big enough so I improvised!
I let my babies out when the temp is above 65 degrees and bring them in at night. They would probably be fine if I left them but I'm not planning on doing that until Thursday wen the temp will get over 80 degrees.
 
We called a local furniture store and got a dishwasher box. It was too tall for me to catch the chicks so we cut it down a bit. We covered two of the side flaps with a trash bag and put them in the bottom for moisture control. Then pine shaving about once a week, food and clean water as needed. They LOVE it and there's room to flap around. My hubby built a frame with chicken wire to fit for the top to keep our cat or any other animal out. (We live out a ways so we have the occ. possum or coon come to visit even in the garage.) We are headed into week 4 and our night temps are in the 40's-50's with daytime 70's. I have been putting them in their grow out yard separate from our adults to get used to the outside. They are all doing well. I have no electricity to put a heat lamp in their coop so I won't leave them out for a few more weeks.
 
My chicks are almost 2 weeks old and the pullets have plenty of feathers, but the little rooster is still mostly down with no tail feathers. Thinking I'm going to wait until 4 weeks to let them go outside during the day. I hope by then the weather will be a good 70 degrees
 
I have found that dog enclosures - they are panels that you can wrap around and lock in place. They are about 3' high so the adolescent birds (mine are 5 weeks) can't get out even though they have perched onto an old fireplace grate that I had in there. Now we have a perch threaded through the enclosure and it works well. The have day trips out to the coop but I'm not quite ready to leave them out at night....still in the 40s and they are just now feathering out
 
I was wondering the same thing. Our chicks are about 3 weeks old. They have a lot of feathers in, still fluff on the heads. We took them outside to play last night. My hubby put up a temporary fence and the chicks and my kids played for a few hours. It was gorgeous out yesterday. Today it is cold and wet. It's supposed to freezer tonight. We'll wait until it is consistently warm out before moving them outside for good.

Love the tip about putting the food and water on a wood block. We are having the same problem with the chicks getting bedding in the water. They spill the food a lot. But they don't mind eating it off the floor.
 

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