Chicks in the garage?

[HickChick Wannabe]

Well, I'm new to this too, and still learning like you, so hopefully you'll get more responses. We got our 6 chicks 3 weeks ago and I was worried about the same thing you are, since they are also in the garage. We've been fortunate; there was a heat wave in the weeks before we picked them up, but the temperature dropped and has stayed reasonable so far. Our coop is almost done and we just need to figure out the run.

So you could keep them all in the temporary shelter (did you check out the chicken tractors?) until the coop is ready? That seems like it should work, as long as it's predator-proof. I'd probably still start them in the garage and just watch there behavior, as LindaN described.

 

[rayb]

Quote:
I could but I should have the coop and runs completed by the time they are here. I don't want them to be crowded in the coop so the meat chickens will just have to make do outside in a temp shelter. I'll see what the temps are in the garage and the effects of fans with some testing this week and weekend.

Ray

 

[olp_63]

I kept mine in my bedroom...it's the only safe place (from dogs and my little siblings) in the house! maybe it's weird, but the chicks are doing AWESOME now!

We did move them to the garage a week or two ago. It was only a matter of time before they started to shtank up my room

!

 

[cloudlet]

I'm brand new to chickens as well.
I purchased mine from a Feeder Supply nearish me. I professed my ignorance and the guy in the store set me up with supplies and told me to keep the chicks in the garage. (I got 2 week olds.) I got home and decided that wasn't going to work. It's too darn hot in there. So, we are fortunate enough to have a spare bathroom and I've put them in there, in an unused dog kennel. The kennel is for a large dog (and is wire, not plastic.) It's working well. I've hung a lamp over the chicks and adjust it based on the weather and how they are behaving. I am also running a small fan at all times, just to keep the air moving. (The bathroom is an interior room.) I'm really happy we have this extra bathroom. I put shredded paper in the kennel and they scratch it and send it all over the place. I put a roost in the kennel too. I was surprised to see the babies trying to perch on the edge of a cardboard box flat I'd put in the kennel. Now when I go in at night, often see all four perched on the mini roost!

I also have four dogs who really want to see the chicks. All the time. Really, they want to eat the chicks. So, I close off the room that the bathroom is in. Soon they get to move outside, but first I have to really decide what I want to build them. Ah, the choices.