Can’t decide if babies should be in or out. Temps on the cusp!

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

Okay. I feel like everyone asks this question… it’s the when to move the chicks outdoors question. But the temps are all on the cusp and I’m horribly indecisive and it’s stressing me out!! I need help deciding!

Here’s the deal. I have 7 chicks ages range 8 1/2 to almost 10 weeks. Standard size fowl (orps, Wyandottes, Legbar, etc…). Most appear fully feathered, by my judgement. We’ve been transitioning them outdoors, and they stayed out all last week. I have a brooder/heater in the coop, and it was maintaining 65 Fahrenheit overnight (50s outside). Daytime highs were 70s in the run, and I closed them up each evening before it cooled off. But alas, I’m in Maryland, and we’re presently being hit with wicked heavy rain and a drop in temps. I brought them inside due to the combo of wet & cold, but my brooder is not really equipped for them at this size anymore.

Tomorrow the rain stops, and temps this coming week will hit 60s & 70s but the overnights are still 40s. The challenge is that we aren’t home during the day. Hubs leaves the house last at 8 AM. Last week it was 50s at 8, so he’d open the coop. This week it’ll be 40s at 8. Once the door to the coop is open, the heater doesn’t really keep it warm anymore. So they’re going to spend several hours in 40s/50/low 60s until it warms up if we do the same thing as last week. I don’t get home until 4:30, so whatever we do at 8, they are stuck with until then. I think the coop will get too hot if we leave them locked inside for that length of time (even if we turn the heater off).

Pics of chicks & their coop included. The lavender orp & Legbar are the 2 youngest chicks.

If you were in my situation would you:
A- stop babying the chickens and leave them outside where they belong (slightly heated small coop & small run)
B- leave them in the coop all day without heat. If it gets 85+ degrees they’ll be fine.
C- figure out a way to finagle a more appropriately sized brooder/indoor space for them for one more week until overnight temps stop being stupid cold.
D- quit your full time job and follow your dream of being a stay at home chicken mom so you can monitor them at all times, spoil them, and make sure they stay in their ideal comfort zone.
E- none of the above

 

[3KillerBs]

At this age they are fully-feathered and giving them any heat at all is actually counterproductive because it's preventing them from acclimating appropriately.

They really should have been completely off heat at 4-6 weeks and will be just fine outside without heat.

At this age, hot temperatures are more dangerous too them then even actually below-freezing temperatures would be. Make sure your coop have generous ventilation at the top level

 

[SandyRiverChick]

For sure Option D! But even in the Scenario of Option D, I'd always go with Option A, less the heat. So I guess I just made Option F

 

[HumbleAmerican]

I put my 2 day old chicks in a portioned off part of the coop. They have water and food near the heat plate, and I toss a towel over the heat plate to help with drafts. At 3 weeks they were sleeping on the towel….. at 4 weeks I unplugged the plate….. 5 weeks removed the plate and towel.

Chicks are not as fragile as it seems. Did I mention overnight temps were 15-20 degrees during my last batch? They will be fine. They pack all the insulation they need at the full feathered stage.

 

[3KillerBs]

I put my 2 day old chicks in a portioned off part of the coop. They have water and food near the heat plate, and I toss a towel over the heat plate to help with drafts. At 3 weeks they were sleeping on the towel….. at 4 weeks I unplugged the plate….. 5 weeks removed the plate and towel.

Chicks are not as fragile as it seems. Did I mention overnight temps were 15-20 degrees during my last batch? They will be fine. They pack all the insulation they need at the full feathered stage.

I keep going out on 45F mornings and finding my Easter-hatched babies all clustered around the wire wall looking out at the green world.

I haven't seen them under the brooder plate for more than a few minutes during the daytime.

 

[HumbleAmerican]

I lost all feeling of them being fragile after watching my first broody raised batch. 35-40 degrees and they terrorize the world for 10-15 minutes at a time. It’s almost choreographed when it’s time to dive under mamma too.

Watching that…. Momma punting the chicks out back when scratching, them climbing as high as they can get and ‘falling’ off…… short of a horse/cow/human stepping on them they’re pretty indestructible.

 

[Blooie]

And these responses are the reason that after my first batch almost 8 years ago I never raised another chick indoors under a heat lamp again. Ever. Mine go outside to a wire brooder pen in the run, among the adults and separated by just the wire, from the start. I use Mama Heating Pad as their surrogate mommy hen - just a heating pad draped over a wire frame, covered with a threadbare towel wrapped in Press ‘n’ Seal. I bend the arch of the frame up slightly to form a sort of shallow cave under it, and they love it. They duck under for a quick warm-up, or as the sun goes down for the night, or if they get spooked. The rest of the time they’re exploring and learning to be chickens.

By 2 weeks the frame is raised a bit and the temperature of the pad turned down. By 3 weeks they spend hardly any time using it at all and it’s only on the lowest temperature setting on some nights. By 4 weeks it’s turned off and the brooder pen is removed completely. Every batch every year, every time. It never ceases to amaze me just how little heat chicks actually require!

I should add that we don’t live in a balmy climate. We’re in Northwestern Wyoming where our springtime “chick season” temperatures are still in the 20s, dipping into the teens, with sideways blowing snow. We can see snowfall into June, and have many times.

If it was me, I’d go with Option A, without the heat, except I’d have done it weeks ago. But I fully realize that my personal comfort zone and yours are not the same, and that’s okay. When I first started doing it the “natural” way and posting about it, people here thought I was crazy.…a crackpot….a mad scientist bent on killing innocent lititle chicks in some sick, bizarre experiment. Your chicks are 8-10 weeks old. That means they are halfway to the point of laying eggs. I think they are capable of handling living outside.

BTW, prepare yourself for a few first class royal chickie temper tantrums. They don’t like change, and after weeks and weeks of a specific environment, they are going to be totally p..pis…..mad about this change. It’s a whopper! New sights, sounds, scary shadows, and <gasp> night! Evil, scary darkness! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Oops, sorry….wrong scenario. Anyway, they’re preprogrammed to go to sleep when the sun sets and wake up when it rises. We mess that up. We mean well, but we mess it up. When faced with it for the first few times, they’re gonna hate you! But they’ll get over it, I promise. Your job is to make sure they are locked in their coop (safely away from those lions and tigers and bears) and adjusting. So pour yourself a cup or glass of whatever will calm your nerves (and maybe harden your heart a bit), pull the covers over your head, and persevere. This is why, when people ask for first aid kit recommendations, my first suggestion is Margarita mix. Sooner or later in this chicken raising journey, we’re gonna need it!

Put them out. You've got this….I have total faith in you!

 

[SandyRiverChick]

And there you have it! Be brave! I actually LISTENED to Blooie many years ago and it was a complete and total game changer. Never going back to inside my house OR red heat lamps, ever again. I just can't believe I didn't do it sooner. Ugh I still remember the downy fuzz all over. And the ridiculous other hassles. etc. And for what? It's practical for me to tend to them, pick them up and all that out in my coop since I have to go there anyway. I will admit that to get to the outside point, there was just one time that I did Mommy hut inside. You can call it my baby steps transition..... Just to see what MHP was all about. AND THEN it made perfect sense that the only difference between in and out was the ambient temp. MHP provided the warmth needed both in and out. I found myself turning the heat off in the room and thinking well duh, how about outside instead. The big girls can see and hear what's going on and get used to them from the very beginning. By the time they're 8-10 weeks they don't even want heat. I get sad to see them ditching their thoughtful fake mommy that I have made with love, but I also cried when my kid went off to College, it's life, and they have very happy young chicken lives I can assure you. Mine newbies are 12weeks now and fully integrated. I sure hope you go for it!!!! Good luck.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Mine are between 7 and 4 weeks old and are outside. Some are still idiots and have to be put in the house at night because they're just out in the run, but they seem happier, even though less than a week ago, they were under a nice warm heat lamp and now it's low 40s at night.

I think they'll be okay once they realize that it's safe outside

 

[Cindy in PA]

I agree, keep them outside with no heat. I have chicks that are 17 days old in the coop in a brooder with a heat plate. The 10 of them survived 33 degrees at 1 week old & several other nights in the 30s. So far the 44 degree night & day temp has not affected them. There were several nights this week when it was 50+ that they actually sat behind the plate. Hoping the weather soon evens out, but so far so good.