Adding a chick outdoors

[Maggielovespickles]

Hi! We are interested in adding a coloured-egg-laying chick from Peavey Mart to our flock of 3 full grown hens. Normally, we would raise the chick in our basement, but the basement was just refinished and is no longer chick friendly. Now that it's summer, with Temps ranging from 20 C overnight to 30C during the day, would it be safe to raise the chick outside in our mini coop if the mini coop was put in the covered run with our other hens? We have a heating pad that could be added. Will the current hens accept a new little one
? Thanks!

 

[ChickyCh00k]

It isn't advisable to get a single chick. I would say 3 is the minimum. With a single chick, it will likely be quite lonely (chickens are social flock animals) and integrating it into the older flock would be much more difficult and dangerous as a singleton.

 

[Rose the Legbar]

I would highly advise against brooding one singular chick. Chickens are flock animals and needs at LEAST (two is not preferable but much better than one) one other chick around its age to grow with it (plus it is much easier for two chicks to integrate into a flock than just one!). Even with your adult hens, the chick can become lonely if it isn't automatically accepted into the flock (it probably wont be). You should use the heating pad as chicks need to be much warmer (around 30C) than 20C. There are articles on how to make a “mama heating pad” that I will try to find.
Edit: I found the link. The heating pad should not have an auto shut off, if it does you cant use it for this method. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mama-heating-pad-in-the-brooder-picture-heavy-update.956958/