Do they go back inside by themselves?

[homesteadinmama]

I have had our chicks now 3 weeks old in the coop for a couple weeks but just since Saturday been letting them out in the attached secured run. When I go out there near dinner time, when it is starting to get cooler (worried about them being cold) I find that some of them are huddled under the coop but the rest went back in. Should I be worried? I have been picking them up and putting them back in but wonder if they will do it on their own? Thanks.

 

[CCourson05]

Keep doing what you are doing... They will eventually get the picture and go in themselves... It just takes time...

 

[Pathfinders]

Quote:
Quite right. I can still recall the first weeks after letting our first chicks here in KY out of their new coop. It was up on blocks, all 10' x 12' of it, and every night for about a week we had to lie on our stomachs and poke around underneath with a net to get them out of there. Funny at first, not so much as the pen started getting poop here and there, and we had to lie in it.

Not long afterwards we boarded up the space, and they can't get under there now. But annoying at the time!

 

[sunnyvera]

Our 5 12-week old babies took a few days to figure it out too. The first couple nites they roosted outside. They are big enough, but, of course I worried. At nite, I would take a flashlight and take each one inside. By the third nite they were all inside by themselves, following the older girls. Boy we sure do worry about them.