Can I put my silkie chicks outside now?

[Tiempo]

I have 4 in the house that are 7-8 weeks old, not under lights, at 'room temperature' which is about 60 at night and 70 during the day, and 11 fully grown in the coop I'd like to put them in.

I could put them in the bathroom for some transition time as I can keep it about 50-55 in there with the door closed (we don't use central heat)..Do you think that's advisable or not necessary? If necessary, for how long?

We are in the mid to upper 30's during the day right now and the mid 20's at night, I have an incandescent bulb in the coop that is just warm enough to keep their water from freezing.

What do you think?

 

[kokeff]

Hmm thats a tough one. We are in Ohio and having similar weather, and same issue with our babies. They are 12 weeks old though and still in transition phase. They are not silkies though. Silkies, to some, are known for not being are cold hardy as others because they dont have the typical feather to keep them warm. Are you thinking of putting the 8 week olds in with the other grown chickens. Have they met before? I would start with putting them in a different pen outside during the day, when it's in the 30's, and place the pen next to the other one. So the babies and the grown chickens can check each other out without being fully together, for fear they would not be nice to the babies. And then bring the babies back in at night when it gets cold. If you can, I would drop the temperature inside where they are too. You want to gradually go into changing temperatures, so 60 to 20 is a big gap. That will give them some time to "learn" how to be a chicken outside and peck around, but not freeze to death. We just introduced some of our 12 week olds outside and they had no clue how to be a chicken...how to peck at the ground or go in their coop. Will be good for the babies to be able to watch the grown chickens and learn from them. Its all personal interest, but I wouldnt throw them into the big coop right away without having been acclimated to full grown chickens beforehand. They arent very nice to new comers!

 

[Tiempo]

I was thinking of putting the babies in a dog crate in the coop until thy get used to each other.

In the summer I put my babies in a transition pen next to the adults for a couple of days, but it's too cold for that now. I've raised a lot of babies, but never in the winter before.

I've put them in the bathroom for now with the door closed and I'm going to start gradually opening the window more and more to let it cool down gradually in there. the window faces east so it doesn't get a lot of cold air blown in quickly.

 

[kokeff]

That sounds great. The dog crate should work in the pen and same with the bathroom. Winter chicks are tough!