They are 4 weeks old and for the last few days, we haven't been using any heat lamp. Tonight is a bit colder but at night, they always huddle even when it's 85 or 90 degrees out so how can I tell if they're too cold at night? I had a thermometer in there but they knocked it down and it's buried somewhere beneath the bedding so I don't really want to go digging for it tonight. I think the low is supposed to be around 65 tonight.
I like to keep a heat lamp or 100w bulb on my birds until at least 6 weeks of age unless its still real cold outside then they have heat 8 weeks or more.
65 is a little cool for 4 weeks -- at 6 weeks mine are still under their Mama. If they start at 95* the first week and drop 5* each week they should be at around 75* to 80*. Chilled chicks rarely recover -- at 4 weeks they are likely fine... but there's no need to not give them a light. Jenny
My 4-5 weeksold chicks have been outside without a light and they huddle together at night and they're fine. I think yours willbe o.k.too.
thanks everyone. I ended up putting the light on. The only reason I was hesitant is because we moved the coop to the run and the cord wasn't hooked up but dh hooked it up for me. The low now says it's going to be 59 so I was afraid it would be too cool, and also we had a chick with a bloody tailfeather area and I worried that the stress of cold would be bad for that (dh put some blue medicine on it). My only concern is that I can't see the coop from the house now and I'm so used to checking on them every couple of hours when the lamp is on and it's not as easy to do that now. I really don't want to go out there in the middle of the night and walk that far by myself. But I think they'll be ok. I think we have a few more cool nights (cooler even than tonight) so we'll need to keep it on. I may switch it to the ceramic heater instead.
My last two chicks at 4 weeks were just about fully feathered. I moved them out in the coop and they did fine. The temp went down in the lower 50's- high 40's. They huddled with 3 other fully feathered chicks. I had the light out there, but only used it for a day. If they are cold, they chirp loudly.
