I have 17 RIR chicks , keeping them in my back room with a 60watt reflective lamp

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to Backyard chickens

 

[Kiki]

Two weeks is way to young to be outside. Even with a heat lamp.

I disagree.
Chicks are usually "born" outside.

 

[Kiki]

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We are glad you joined our flock.
Jump right in and make yourself at home.

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[Blooie]

Raised my first chicks in a room here in the house. Red heat lamp, box - the whole overprotective 9 yards. By 5.5 weeks I didn't even LIKE them anymore! Dust, an 8 year old granddaughter with a burn on her arm, chicks peeping all night long, constant cleaning to keep the smell down, changing water and putting in dry bedding every half hour - I was OVER them! The coop wasn't quite finished, it was April 1 in northwestern Wyoming, and I evicted them. Out they went! It was them or me!

I put a lamp out there for them and jumped up to check on them constantly all night long as the temps dropped to 18 degrees. But every time I went out there, they were just fine, curled up in a puddle of beaks and tails in front of the pop door and nowhere near the heat lamp. Second night, same story. Third day, April 3, I took the heat lamp out, because if they weren't using it I wasn't wasting the power or risking a fire. That night it snowed. We got our last snowfall that year on June 6th. If I'd waited until the charts and the thermometer said it was "safe" to put them out, they'd have been in the house until they were 17.5 weeks old.

Now I skip all that and set up Mama Heating Pad in a wire enclosure out in the run and raise them out there from day one. I'm happier, the family is happier, the chicks are happier, stronger and totally off all heat with the brooder taken out completely at the end of their 4th week because I have total integration with the flock by then. They have had natural day/night cycles from day one. They self-regulate their own comfort and do it far better than I can with a heat lamp.

it's not the only way to raise chicks. It's outside the personal comfort zones of lots of people because it goes against everything we thought we knew about raising chicks. But if you think about it, it totally mimics the way a mother hen raises her chicks regardless of the weather conditions.

Welcome to BYC!! No matter how you decide to raise your chicks, you're in for the adventure of a lifetime and we're glad to have you here!