How soon is too soon to put chicks in the coop....in this weather

[ssines]

Hello. This is my first post on here, so bear with me if i ask a dumb question or use the wrong terminology. LOL.

I live in Northeast OH. We got 25 day old chicks on December 22nd. They are about 5 weeks old today. The brooder that i built for them is great (4'x4'x20"), but they are growing much faster than i anticipated. The brooder is in the basement of my house. All is fine except that they are starting to get a bit crowded in the brooder. They are also getting a lot of wood chips in their water and food containers. Also, they are starting to get a bit smelly, and i've been cleaning the litter everyday. On top of that, there is an insane amount of dust in the basement, i assume from the wood ships.

So, i've asked around and have been told that they should be good to go in the coop as soon as they have all the feathers as long as there are heat lamps in the coop. the coop is fairly large (14' x 11') and it's dry and draft free. I just don't want to move them out there too soon and risk causing more harm than good. So, I'd like to get thoughts from others in the forum before i make a decision. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

Scot

 

[crazyhen]

Put your heat lights in and check your temps at night or early morning. If it is reasonable say in the high 60 or so they will probably be fine. Give them plenty of dry wood chip bedding to snuggle in if they need to. Usually they would have been out of my house at 2 or three weeks but in winter the rules are a little different. I kept one group in to 7 weeks. I thought I would go crazy with the dust. The chickens produce the dust even more than the wood chips. They shed skin cells and feather particles constantly. Good luck and welcome to BYC

Gloria Jean