jwebs94
Chirping
- Mar 25, 2018
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My girls will be 5 weeks old on Monday. They are big and I think you'd call them fully feathered. From the start they only had the mother hen heat plate, no heat lamp. And my house is old and really cold.
They outgrew the brooder at 2 weeks so I pieced together a giant box and put them in my spare room. I was worried about my cats so I would shut that room's door at night --the radiators don't work in the bedrooms. I'd open the door in the mornings to find a freezing cold room. And a bunch of chickens that weren't bothered. They even stopped sleeping under the heat plate and often slept on top in a pile. So...they've been exposed to cold. I bet it got down in the 30s at night when it's down in the 20s outside. (Yes, my heating bill is astronomical.)
Well, now they are 5 weeks old and bored and the dust storm has rolled in and... oddly not too smelly, or perhaps I've gone nose blind, but they really need to get out. Next weeks weather looks crappy --frm thunder to snow and everything in between. I'm going to try to keep them in one more week. BUT...
It's only going to be in the 50s during the day and still down into the mid to upper 20s several of the nights through the rest of April.
Will it be OK to move them out when it's dropping in the 20s? Should I put the heat plate in the coop for them just incase? Or should I figure something else out for them inside through April and hope that May brings some heat? I'll attach some photos that I took a couple days ago so that you can see their feathers... the pictures don't dotheir size any justice. lol
They outgrew the brooder at 2 weeks so I pieced together a giant box and put them in my spare room. I was worried about my cats so I would shut that room's door at night --the radiators don't work in the bedrooms. I'd open the door in the mornings to find a freezing cold room. And a bunch of chickens that weren't bothered. They even stopped sleeping under the heat plate and often slept on top in a pile. So...they've been exposed to cold. I bet it got down in the 30s at night when it's down in the 20s outside. (Yes, my heating bill is astronomical.)
Well, now they are 5 weeks old and bored and the dust storm has rolled in and... oddly not too smelly, or perhaps I've gone nose blind, but they really need to get out. Next weeks weather looks crappy --frm thunder to snow and everything in between. I'm going to try to keep them in one more week. BUT...
It's only going to be in the 50s during the day and still down into the mid to upper 20s several of the nights through the rest of April.
Will it be OK to move them out when it's dropping in the 20s? Should I put the heat plate in the coop for them just incase? Or should I figure something else out for them inside through April and hope that May brings some heat? I'll attach some photos that I took a couple days ago so that you can see their feathers... the pictures don't dotheir size any justice. lol
