First Night Outside. :)

[mommabice]

Well, after chasing escaped chickens around my house two days in a row, I moved the brooder outside. They are six weeks old, and all feathered except their bums. They are still in the brooder (we are finishing the coop this weekend) and on the screened in porch. It is about 80-85 during the day, and last night it got down to 65. I put an old blanket over part of the brooder last night to help hold heat in (since the coop will hold heat too) and they are all great this morning. I feel like a bad mom for kicking them out, but chasing chickens in the house and a toddler was not working. lol. Anyone else put their babies out recently?

 

[Connorrm]

I put my three week olds in the coop last night. It was 45 degrees over night. They still have a heat lamp but they aren't interested in it. They're too busy zooming around their new 136 square foot pad.

It's pretty cute. They are all amazed at the bowl of DE I gave them to roll in. So cute!

 

[cwcochran1961]

i see all this talk about DE? what is it and where do i get it?

 

[Connorrm]

Food Grade Diatomaceous (DIE AH TOME ACIOUS) Earth. It's at TSC now in a 20lb bag and little canisters by the chicken supplies.


Apparently it's good for them to eat and rips insects and creepy crawlies apart when they come in contact with it.

 

[beej]

I have 8, 4 week old chicks and moved them into the chicken tractor for a few nights last week until the weather got cold again. Since I didn't want to bring them back into the house I divided my mostly empty shed in half and put them in there with the brooder lamp, but they do not seem very interested in the lamp.

I have 4 egg layers and 4 Cornish Xs and needed to get them out of the heat of the house since the CXs were minding the heat in my house. I am new to this but from the reading I have done it seems that you need to "harden-off" chicks like you do tomato plants so they can adapt to being outside full time.

I ordered my food grade diatomaceous earth from Amazon.com and it should be in any day now.

 

[DebbieParker]

My chicks will be 4 weeks old on Sunday and I am so ready to get them outside. How to I get them ready to go outside? I put them out there every day once it warms up, and I am going to stop using the brooder lamp. It is in the 80's here in the daytime and 50-60 degrees at night. What else should I do to get them ready for full-time life in the chicken coop?

Thanks,
Debbie (first-timer)

 

[yakibert]

Mine will be out for the first night tonight. 40-50 degree days and 35-45 degree nights. I do have a heat lamp and it's as draft free and I can figure to make it. I think they'll be fine ..but there's always that anxiety.

 

[beej]

I hear you both about the anxiety. The night it got down to 29 this week I was worried, but they all made it fine. It is difficult to go from watching (hovering) over them inside the house as tiny fuzzballs in the brooder to what feels like "throwing them out into the cold cruel world".

It was 31 degrees when I came out next morning and when I looked in they just came running looking for their breakfast from the "Food Lady".

One thing that helped me was to watch them be soooo much happier out of the house.

Debbie, how many chicks to you have and what sort of coop? Can you put the brooder lamp in the coop with them? I have a chicken tractor and put a heating pad in with them in their coop portion of the tractor. I don't know if they used that either but it made me feel better.

 

[DebbieParker]

I have 6 easter eggers. Sunday they will be 4 weeks old. I have a heat lamp for the brooder, but the red light bulb just burned out today. I can put it in the coop with a regular light bulb in it. My coop was a wooden play house. It has small spaces between the boards so it isn't draft free yet. It is so hard to guess when to put them out there for good, but they are SO much happier outside! We still have to paint the coop so it will be at least a week before it is ready for full time occupants, so maybe by then it will be OK to put the chickens outside. I hope!

 

[mommabice]

I did "harden them off" in the house. We stopped using their heat lamp for most of the day about 2 weeks ago, so they were used to being at about 70-75 degrees most of the day. The last few days they have not had the lamp at all. I figured they had most of their feathers (except for the butt) and they just huddle side by side (but not in a pile) to keep warm. Which reminds me, I need to go throw the blanket over the top of the brooder. That holds in the heat at night like a coop roof would.