Cold Night's and 10 Week Old Chicks?

[JekkaLynn]

I have a pen full of 10 week old Marans chicks. I have been turning on a heat lamp for them at night but just finally looked at a calendar and realized that they were already 10 weeks old!

I have been keeping three for a friend until they could go without a heat lamp and am thinking that by now they should be old enough for me to stop turning the lamp on at night. I am sure the ones I am keeping will be fine even with the cold night's we have coming next week but would three chicks kept in a small snug mini coop at night be warm enough if the temperature drops to down to between 8-12 like the forecast is calling for?

 

[MrsBachbach]

I have a pen full of 10 week old Marans chicks. I have been turning on a heat lamp for them at night but just finally looked at a calendar and realized that they were already 10 weeks old!

I have been keeping three for a friend until they could go without a heat lamp and am thinking that by now they should be old enough for me to stop turning the lamp on at night. I am sure the ones I am keeping will be fine even with the cold night's we have coming next week but would three chicks kept in a small snug mini coop at night be warm enough if the temperature drops to down to between 8-12 like the forecast is calling for?

Well at 10 wks they should all be fully feathered. That's some cold winter temps for this time of year. I guess I would base my answer on whether your nighttime temps have been below freezing while they have been growing? Is this going to be a shock to them? Since you say they have had a heat lamp on them, sounds like it would be a bit of an overnight shock. If it was me, I would stick with a heatlamp, but, find a smaller wattage maybe and wean them off of it, instead of shock them with those temps. Wait a minute. Is that 8-12 degrees Fahrenheit or centigrade? If it's centigrade, they should be fine.

 

[JekkaLynn]

Lol no not farenheit.
I am in Ontario. I would stop using the heat lamp tonight when it will still be 20C overnight and slowly over the nest couple nights it is suppose to slowly get cooler at night until next Monday when the cold nights are suppose to hit. Would that be long enough before the bad weather to harden them off?

 

[MrsBachbach]

Lol no not farenheit.
I am in Ontario. I would stop using the heat lamp tonight when it will still be 20C overnight and slowly over the nest couple nights it is suppose to slowly get cooler at night until next Monday when the cold nights are suppose to hit. Would that be long enough before the bad weather to harden them off?

I would think so. Ten weeks, fully feathered, they should be fine. As long as the coop is wind free and dry, they should be fine.

 

[Blooie]

I'm in Northern Wyoming, in a basin between three mountain ranges and not too far from Yellowstone Park. My first batch of chicks went out with heat lamp at 5.5 weeks. They didn't use it - they slept in a pile of feathers and feet near the pop door instead of near the lamp. It was 20 degrees (F) inside the coop. I left the lamp in the next night. Again they didn't use it. The third morning I took it out. That night it snowed, and our last snowfall was June 6th. They were just fine.

My last three batches of chicks were brooded outside in the run, and they have never known what a heat lamp is. I used Mama Heating Pad over a straw cave. Strongest batches of chicks ever! Temps in the run were in the teens and twenties, again, Fahrenheit. These little guys are not as delicate as we humans make them out to be.

If yours had been raised under a broody hen, there is no way they'd still be fitting under her at 10 weeks old. She'd have taught them to roost on their own, the only heat source being each other, and they'd be used to the natural day/night cycle, going to bed when the sun goes down and waking up at sunrise. I think it's time for you to let those chickens be chickens. They aren't using the heat lamp because they desperately need the heat - they are still using it because chickens and humans are creatures of habit. They'll be just fine - they might get confused and mad for a night or two, but they'll get over it quickly. They sure form new habits easily.

 

[JekkaLynn]

Normally I would have weaned them off the light aches ago and I am not worried about the ones I am keeping. I have enough to krrps each other warm easily. It is just the three my friend is taking that I wanted to be sure about.

Lol I found out I was pregnant right around when the chicks were getting ready to hatch in the incubator and I have been so sick that I lost all track of just how old the chicks had gotten. I have the heat lamp off now.