Moving Chicks To A Coop

[Coop’s Coop]

My chicks are 3-4 weeks old. They are currently in a brooder with a heat lamp on. It’s about 80 degrees. However they are quickly outgrowing their brooder. When is it ok to put them outside in their coop? There are no other chickens in the coop. It gets down in the low 30s at night, would a heat lamp still provide enough heat for them at night?

If I can’t put them in their coop, when can I take them outside for short periods of time to play and get used to the outdoors?

 

[bobbi-j]

I would put them in the coop. Mine are in the coop from day 1. I have brooded chickens as early as late March without trouble.

 

[chickens really]

They will be fine.....

 

[Better Than Rubies]

Hey there! I'm following this thread because I wanted to know the answers to it; I have four chicks inside the house in their brooder around 3-and-a-half to 4-weeks old, and they don't have a heat lamp (instead, they have a small reptile heating mat, but it doesn't give off a whole lot of heat like the lamps), and mine have spent some daylight hours out on warm days lately--with an exception of yesterday, which was cooler--so I too want to know if they could stay outside the entire day and night, without a heat lamp or other heat source (except each other and their shavings)?

Edited to add: I think our night temps are around OP's.

 

[lazy gardener]

By 3 weeks of age, your chicks should have been weaned from heat if they are in your house. They should be acclimating to outdoor temps after that. My chicks are brooded outside with a MHP, starting with temps in 20's to 50's. by the time they are 4 - 5 weeks old they have weaned themselves from heat with temps in 30's to 70's.

If brooded with a heat lamp, they must be conditioned or hardened off to outside temps, just like you would do so with tender garden transplants.