Almost ready for outside.

[Randol]

Tomorrow they will be 5 weeks old, I will have there pin ready by the first of next month and man am I ready for them to go out. 13 in total and for the first time I did not lose a single bird. Yay for me!

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Tomorrow they will be 5 weeks old, I will have there pin ready by the first of next month and man am I ready for them to go out.

Welcome to BYC.

Looks like they're ready too!

Consider bringing in some clumps of dirt with grass attached from the pasture they will be going into, if you haven't already done so. It's a great enrichment activity that provides some natural grit and busts boredom, but more than that it gives them a LITTLE exposure to the things in your pasture to help build up some immunity before going out full time.

 

[Randol]

Welcome to BYC.

Looks like they're ready too!

Consider bringing in some clumps of dirt with grass attached from the pasture they will be going into, if you haven't already done so. It's a great enrichment activity that provides some natural grit and busts boredom, but more than that it gives them a LITTLE exposure to the things in your pasture to help build up some immunity before going out full time.

I do like that idea I'll remember that on the next bach, I've been taking them out for the last week or so and letting them play. I just have to get paid so I can finnish there pin. LOL

 

[Battlepants]

Firmly agree that these birds are ready for the coop. And I'm sure you are ready for a not-stinky washroom too!

Another enrichment thing that I like to do is to provide a practice roostbar and grab random branches from the bushes outside. For the roostbar, it looks like you accidentally provided this with the edge of the brooder, so all good there. The random branches from outside is a lot of fun - they will initially be very scared of the new thing, but eventually they will come to immediately pounce on them and rip off all the green leaves they can find.

 

[Devorah]

Tomorrow they will be 5 weeks old, I will have there pin ready by the first of next month and man am I ready for them to go out. 13 in total and for the first time I did not lose a single bird. Yay for me!

They’re so big! So you’re putting them in the coop at 6 weeks?

 

[Devorah]

I do like that idea I'll remember that on the next bach, I've been taking them out for the last week or so and letting them play. I just have to get paid so I can finnish there pin. LOL

Where do you put them when you take them outside?

 

[Battlepants]

Where do you put them when you take them outside?

If you have the time and energy for it, setting up a small run for them made out of chicken wire works well. Just be sure to put a top on it as small birds are a bit of a target for predators.

If you want something quick and dirty, I like using a dog crate with the tray removed. This way they can still scratch and dig somewhat on the dirt, they'll just have to step over the wires in the floor.

As for where in the yard - pick somewhere shaded and dry. Don't want them to get overheated or overly dirty.

 

[Blooie]

I would think the first step would be turning off the heat lamp. They need to acclimate to ambient temperatures - if not now, when? The longer they have it, the tougher it is on them. They don’t like change, and this is going to be a whopper! So you’ll probably have to harden yourself to a first class chickie temper tantrum for a few nights. They’ll forgive you, I promise. A good, secure pen of some kind (I use a dog exercise pen for the roominess), food, water, and each other should be all they need. They’ll huddle. They do this as much for security as they do for warmth. Everything is new and strange and scary - the only familiar things they have are each other.

Think of a broody hen raising them. By this age and size, they wouldn’t all fit under her anymore anyway. At just a couple of days old, she’d have them out on the ground, getting dirty, drinking out of mud puddles, eating bugs, seeds, grasses and weeds..even chicken poop. She be off doing her own thing and if they got chilly or spooked they’d stop exploring and run to find her for a warmup or security.

I evicted my first chicks at 5.5 weeks old. It was either them or me. I wasn’t enjoying them anymore.….in fact, I was starting to hate them. They were 10 times more work than it was worth with all constant cheeping, cleaning waterers 3x a day, smelling them as soon as I walked into the house, and the dust…..oh, the dust!! I was scared of the heat lamp so I rarely went anywhere. Eviction Day was April 1, 2014. They were 5.5 weeks old. Out they went. I put a heat lamp out there with them. That night the temperatures dropped….it got down to 18 degrees. I kept jumping up out of my warm bed to check on them. They were nowhere near the heat lamp - they were snuggled down by the pop door in a pile of beaks and feathers. Second night, same story, except I only got up to check them once. The third day I took the heat lamp out. They weren’t using it anyway and I wasn’t risking a fire. That night it snowed and the winds howled. We got our last snowfall that year on June 6th. If I’d have kept them in until the experts and charts said it was ‘safe’, they’d have been 15.5 weeks old. No thanks! Our precocious Ida laid her first egg at 17 weeks old….she’d have come close to laying her first egg in the brooder if I’d waited! I have never raised another brood of chicks indoors under a heat lamp again. Ever. They start out outside with Mama Heating Pad and they stay out there. And they thrive.

My personal feeling is that charts and experts have us scared to raise chickens…instead we are raising divas and projecting our own comfort and needs on them. In the process we are stressing them and ourselves. There are some creatures who draw their first breaths just knowing how to put humans on guilt trips….chicks are one of them!! After my first experience raising chicks, I started watching broody hens, the real experts. And I wondered - if a two pound broody hen can successfully raise her broods outdoors among the flock regardless of weather, and do so without heat lamps, books, charts, night lights, experts, and web sites, why in Heaven’s name do we do it so differently and think we’re doing it better?

 

[Randol]

Where do you put them when you take them outside?

I have a dog kennel I use for new /sick or woonded chickens, I put them in there.

 

[Randol]

They’re so big! So you’re putting them in the coop at 6 weeks?

I put them out first thing in the morning and bring them in before night fall. There fully fetherd and have been off the heat lamp for almost a week new.