Hello from Maine!

[The Red Rooster]

Welcome to BYC!

Glad you joined us!

 

[peterslovo]

Well the girls are outside. I checked on them at 830 pm and they were all huddled up in the corner of the coop on the shavings and not roosting. The temp was around 40 in the coop but we have a stiff cold N wind today and currently. They were clearly cold. I broke down and ran a 100w iridescent heat lamp (unfortunately not red because thats a 250w bulb I used for their brooders) out to the coop and secured it. Just checked on them again and they are all on the roost and seem much more comfortable. Im still going to turn the lamp off when I go to bed so hopefully they'll be ok. I really want them to get used to no extra heat but I will be running a normal bulb out to them this next winter to help with the ~14 hours of daylight which we definitely don't get in winter up here.

Am I being a negligent father by turning off the lamp tonight?

 

[peterslovo]

Just to update, the girls did fine last night, and were happy to see me this morning.

I guess it's like a father worrying about his daughter(s) first date!

 

[PeuAPeu]

My little babies are in their second week and I moved them into an outdoor coop/brooder yesterday. I did run the heat lamp out and have a small space covered by wire over their roosts. The rest of their roof is tin. On the end where the roost is, I have a wooden floor. Their food and water is located there. The rest of the floor is wire with dried leaves on top of it. They also have a big round bowl (the kind that goes under a big potted plant) and it is filled with dirt. They enjoy playing around in it. The coop is 3 ft off the ground. It is 8 ft long and about 2 ft tall. When I got up this morning they were running around and seemed perfectly happy. I am only using the heat lamp at night. Here in Alabama the temps are 80s in the day and high 50s/60s at night.