Okay you start brooding at 90 - 100 F and drop the temp 10 degrees a week right? So about 3 weeks to a month old they can go to a room temp. and off of heat lamps?? Trying to plan indoor growing pens. Thanks. Also how much floor space should each silkie have in the growing pens?
You can drop it 5 degrees a week. By the time mine where six weeks old the had no more heat. They where almost all feathered out. I hatched in Nov. and live in a 150 year old farm house. My temp in the house was about 60.
You start out at 90 to 95 degrees the first week. Don't want to bake the little boogers either. My chicks were never comfortable with the 90 degree range, even in their first week and that's the key. Watch your chicks! Huddling under their heat lamp and peeping loudly, too cold. Getting as far away from the heat source as possible (and sometimes even panting) and they're too hot. My chicks were brooded in a heated shed their first week. After that it was too warm in that shed during the day so we moved them to the screened porch with a draft guard. They did fine there and we took their heat lamps away at night at 5 1/2 weeks. That was mid-May.
To echo what gritsar said you do not want to over heat them. I set my light on one end of the brooder box this way if they were cold the could go under the light or move to just outside the light. You chicks are best at telling you what you need to do.
