Can they go outside now?

[hensnchix]

Hi all,

My five six-week-old chicks are now too big (and too noisy) to stay in their brooder in the living room. Our coop is not yet finished, but I have a 35-square-foot atrium in the middle of the house where I've been letting them play during the day. (So much for the vegetation in THAT garden). Can I leave them in that atrium at night if I set up a heat lamp? (It gets down to about 55 degrees here at night.) It seems like all the heat would just get dispersed in that big space.

Thanks!
Susan

 

[justusnak]

You could leave them in there overnight. They should be all feathered out now, and would be ok with the 55 temps. However....you could put a heat lamp in there....with a 3 sided "brooder" to keep the heat more confined. They will come to the heated space, if they get too cold. I say...let em run!

 

[MayberrySaint]

They should be fine...I put mine in the coop when they were about that age and it got down in the 40s at night (this was late April). The heat lamp is to provide a microenvironment or zone that is warm and comfortable for the chicks to rest and sleep, not necessarily heat up the whole space.

 

[hensnchix]

Thanks you two. I spent about an hour last night setting them up to stay overnight in the atrium--fixing up a little box, triple-checking the stability of the heat lamp, making sure the food and water containers were full, generally hovering over them like a new mother hen...

They did just great until it got dark and then the yelling started. PEEP! PEEP! PEEP! My wimpy heart broke and I brought them inside. They had a peaceful night all snuggled up together.

Little Buff and Monkey still have fuzz on their backs so I'll use that as my justification for not leaving them outside at night yet...

Susan