How long should they stay in the brooder?

[AParmer]

I have 8 Welsummer and 10 Black Lorps in a brooder together. They're all about a week and a half old. The Welsummers are already putting in great looking wing feathers. The BLs are slower putting theirs in. As seen in the photo below, I let my babies out and into their "play pen" when it's nice and sunny for a couple of hours during the day. They are thriving well, but I'm very unsure when to pull them from the brooder and directly into their closed coop. I know they will still need their light for a while but I'm ready to see these sweeties running around their coop. I will run out and take a couple of pictures of my set up and post a reply in a little bit. We have four elevated "pens" to keep all batches separated. And the other two stay open for them to go in roost at night. Once everyone is in to roost the doors are shut and locked.

My watchful Willie Nelson protecting his flock.

These are my three or four week old Black Lorp pullets (though I question one of them being a cockrel) during their yard time. They are out of the brooder but still have a heat lamp to keep them warm on cool or windy nights. When should I remove the light for these girls.

 

[Habibs Hens]

take out heat lamp at about 4 weeks or when ambient temp is 20 Deg Cent

anything less than 10 Degs Cent then keep lamp for further 3 weeks upto 7 allowing full featuring

I usually like to take heat lamp away at 4 weeks and keep indoors in brooder with out lamp till 7 weeks

and then outside with a old Duvet Blanket to cover coop at night or when it rains

 

[AParmer]

Thank you very much for your help. Do you know the fahrenheit conversion of those temperatures?

 

[mertel]

20c= 68f
10c=50f

I was wondering the same questions myself!

 

[AParmer]

Thank you so much!

 

[AParmer]

As promised, I finally went and took pictures of my coop set up for you. I'd welcome ideas for improvement if anyone has any.


Starting from left to right we will call the individual "runs" 1 through 4.
1 is set up for my three week old Black Australorps
2 is holding one of the brooder boxes
3 is for another brooder that I'm working on
4 was for the adult chickens that were recently moved, so I'm in the process of setting it up for young chicks like 1.




Inside pen 1, their box isn't slid all the way back to aid in getting them out for play time.


Inside pen 2