How Soon Can Chicks Go Outside Coop

[OliviaDeHav]

Quote:
The only thing i found for a problem happened yesterday with our little ones... we have our older girls outside now...first night last night! I wanted to introduce the smaller chicks who are 2 weeks old to the 6 week olds so they can interact. That all went fine

but when i got a phone call and was distracted one of the babies decided to poke her beak into the tiny hardware cloth and got her beak caught good! she pulled it out and now has a good scratch on the top! If she'd had it in there any further or twisted just right, i swear it would have broken it! maybe I'm wrong....
We don't leave the girls out by themselves at all.... we are still working on things outside, by their run, so they have constant monitoring. The top isn't on the run yet... plus with our free ranging (which you are not doing) we sit outside with them, if i come in, i lead them back to their run.
Sounds like you have a very secure place for them. Our girls did fine last night and it was chilly.... they have all their feathers now.... but we had them in the brooder in the coop to transition them.
Hope all is going well

ps....to be honest, i think most animals now-a-days are too spoiled and too worried about.... the old timers never did any of this stuff.... but i do understand it... i was up last night worrying if my girls were warm enough

 

[PJCluck]

My run is now completely finished. Went with the 2x4 welded-wire fencing on the sides and over the whole top - that took 8 or 9 rolls all told, very expensive - the run is about 20x50. I have also lined the lower 'walls' with chicken wire inside, and all that is held together with about a million of these fantastic loxit rings. The loxit rings made it all relatively easy to pull together. However, I was just wishing now for an automated loxit fastener, sort of like a nail gun...now that would be very cool. Anyway...the 7-week-old chicks (they're quite large now) would not go out the pop door and down the plank on their own so I took about 6 of them out myself. The others were quite curious, but they didn't budge. One of the 6 I took out was (we think) a rooster. Near dusk, they weren't going up the plank to the coop, so I gathered all but the rooster and put them back in the pop door. I left the rooster to see if he would do it on his own and sure enough he did. A relief. This morning I opened the pop door and eventually about 14 of the 16 have made it outside. They can now navigate the rather steep plank (it has rungs). They love their new world - scratching through the heavy leaf cover for bugs is turning them on. It's now official: we have a working chicken operation. Thanks for all the advice here! More questions to come in the fullness of time, no doubt.

 

[kingdr85]

If the area is safe and you are around....DAY 1 (if they are up to it)!