Garaging young birds

[45pro]

Hey guys and gals. I have week and a half old chicks that I have in my homemade brooder in my house. As they get bigger I want to transfer them into a larger crate i modified that will be outside in my garage. Temps are below freezing here and will continue to be until around march/April. Question I have is, since it will be colder in my garage, even with a heat light, when can/should i make the transfer?
Pics of current setup at 90 degrees right now.

And new setup that will be in the garage, below freezing with heat lamp. Not sure what the sustained temps will be, except for the fact that it will be variable depending on weather temp outside and opening and closing of garage door to pull vehicles in and out.

 

[lazy gardener]

Lovely set up. The sooner you can get them moved to the garage the better. Of course, you will need to check out what kind of heat that lamp puts out during the coldest part of the night as well as during the warmest part of the day. Your goal is to give them a footprint in which they can warm up but allow the rest of the brooder to be at what ever the ambient temps are. You will need to harden them off to outside temps before they can move to the coop. Garage is a wonderful place to do so.

Where did you get your crate?

How many chicks?

Have you looked at the Mama Heating Pad brooder system? You might really like that option for your brooder, especially b/c it is more natural, does not heat the whole brooder, and there is much less risk of fire from a heating pad.

One concern I have with your set up is this: when you have the front of the crate closed, there will be no ventilation except for the ventilation around the lamp. I suggest that you give them a window. Keeping them closed in that box without a view to the outside world will make them very skittish.

Be absolutely sure that your heat lamp can not be bumped out of position or be close enough to any surface to cause that surface to get hot.

 

[junebuggena]

I always brood my chicks in the garage. As long as you provide both a warm and a cool zone in the brooder, it doesn't matter where you brood them. That's the key, providing both a warm spot and a cool zone. The brooder needs to be big enough for the heat from the heat lamp to dissipate. Too much heat can be even more dangerous than not enough.

 

[45pro]

Lovely set up. The sooner you can get them moved to the garage the better. Of course, you will need to check out what kind of heat that lamp puts out during the coldest part of the night as well as during the warmest part of the day. Your goal is to give them a footprint in which they can warm up but allow the rest of the brooder to be at what ever the ambient temps are. You will need to harden them off to outside temps before they can move to the coop. Garage is a wonderful place to do so.

Where did you get your crate?

How many chicks?

Have you looked at the Mama Heating Pad brooder system? You might really like that option for your brooder, especially b/c it is more natural, does not heat the whole brooder, and there is much less risk of fire from a heating pad.

One concern I have with your set up is this: when you have the front of the crate closed, there will be no ventilation except for the ventilation around the lamp. I suggest that you give them a window. Keeping them closed in that box without a view to the outside world will make them very skittish.

Be absolutely sure that your heat lamp can not be bumped out of position or be close enough to any surface to cause that surface to get hot.

I have 4 chicks, crate is from my wife's work that they use to transport machines in, I just modified it a bit. Reason I only cut the one side of the top open and nothing else is because I am trying to trap as mich heat as I can inside the box since it will be MUCH cooler in the garage than inside the house. I was worried that adding a viewing area on the side would let all the heat out/freezing cold air in. I can probably keep them in the brooder they are in for a few more weeks before they will just plain be getting too big for it. So how old do they need to be before they have enough feathers to withstand temps in the 50's or 60's?(that's what I'm guessing it will be in the box roughly with the heat light.) They're getting a new coop next spring after a dog destroyed my old one and killed all my chickens 3 weeks ago. So this crate will be home for the next 4ish months until it gets warm enough to revamp my old shed into a coop and build a run onto it. Chickens will be out of the crate daily as my children cannot let a day go buy without holding and petting them.

Will adding a window to the crate cause me to lose too much heat or make it too drafty? How long should I wait until I put them out there? When can they start handling colder temps?

 

[45pro]

I always brood my chicks in the garage. As long as you provide both a warm and a cool zone in the brooder, it doesn't matter where you brood them. That's the key, providing both a warm spot and a cool zone. The brooder needs to be big enough for the heat from the heat lamp to dissipate. Too much heat can be even more dangerous than not enough.

Granted they are only 12 days old, but when I removed the heat lamp from the brooder inside my house which stays at 72 degrees, for just 5 minutes to take it into the garage, I came back inside and the chicks were huddled together like they were freezing.

Should I just keep dialing the temp down 5 degrees every week until i reach the 72 degree room temperature? Then remove the heat lamp for a week, set it up in the crate in the garage and get a good test of temperature insode with it on for awhile?

 

[45pro]

My main concern is i dont know hoe cold is too cold and what age they can start handling cooler temps.

 

[junebuggena]

Granted they are only 12 days old, but when I removed the heat lamp from the brooder inside my house which stays at 72 degrees, for just 5 minutes to take it into the garage, I came back inside and the chicks were huddled together like they were freezing.

Should I just keep dialing the temp down 5 degrees every week until i reach the 72 degree room temperature? Then remove the heat lamp for a week, set it up in the crate in the garage and get a good test of temperature insode with it on for awhile?

They are used to the high temps, and the do still need access to a heat source. It's just that the rest of the brooder, away from the heat lamp should be the same temp as the ambient room temp.

 

[lazy gardener]

My chicks are brooded outdoors, usually hatched mid April. They are brooded in a grow out coop and their only heat source is a heating pad cave. The rest of their brooder area is what ever the ambient temps happen to be. Often, we get freezing nights! And these little chicks do fine. They bounce around all day long, running out to play, then back under their heating pad cave to warm up again. They wean themselves off heat by the time they are 4 - 5 weeks old. At that time, night time temps can be down into the 30's. That's the beauty of the heating pad cave style of brooder. They are acclimated to outdoor temps starting in the first week. The biggest flaw with a heat lamp (other than the fact that they are a fire danger) is that they keep the brooder too warm.

An other issue with your long term brooding plan is lack of space. Those chicks are gonna double their size every week. By the time they are 2 - 3 weeks old, they should have 2 s.f./bird. By the time they are 4 weeks old, I like to see them having at least 3 - 4 s.f./bird. By the time my chicks are 3 weeks old, they come and go from their brooder loft to their lower level run, and have as much room as an adult chicken should have. The more room you give them, the less likely you are to have behavioral problems.

Are you keeping a car in the garage? Any chance you can add an appliance box to that crate, at least until you have your coop situated?

So, back to your question: adding a window will cool the crate down, But, that's not necessarily a bad thing. You will have to monitor them, and see how they do. You could even add a window, and cover it with plastic at night.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

Adding a window should not make a difference because you have a big hole on top, and heat rises. It only needs to be warm just under the lamp, the rest can be cold they will acclimate faster than your idea of a warm room... LG is right, its going to get too small very quick. Can you get a second crate from wifes work and double the space?

I used a heat plate in the coop last April, some nights it dipped into the 20"s and they weaned off heat at 4 weeks, and it was 30's and 40's some nights still.

Gary

 

[theoldchick]

I do the garage brooder all the time. Works fine until my husband gets someone's zillion dollar custom muscle car in for repairs. In that case we reschedule the muscle car at the later date. For security reasons we do keep those car babies in the house garage, but only if I don't have my babies in there!