Moving Outside - but temp is supose to drop...

[mommto3kiddos]

I am wanting to move my now 6 week old girls out to their coop this weekend, but I just saw the temps outside next week are supose to be highs in 60 and lows in upper 40's... Should I wait our do you think they will be fine...

 

[turney31]

As long as there are no drafts and they have a light, go ahead and move them.

 

[IndigoJaguar]

I still am looking for the answer to this question too for sure.

Mine are four weeks old and they had been going all night without a light or heat in a seventy degree house for a few days. I moved them outside three days ago. I have a small blower heater in their box for night time.....I keep it between sixty and seventy, and am working the temp down each night. I hope by next week to have them off heat all together. In the day, I put a heat lamp in their box, and they use it when they are cold. This morning it was 35 when I let them out of their box. They ran around for a bit, then all went under the lamp until it warmed up a bit. O...and they are in an open front hoop house with a tarp over two sides and a little cover over the other. There are plenty of drafts in my greenhouse, I'm sure, but they seem to run to the box when they get cold.

 

[Fred's Hens]

6 week old chicks can easily take temps down to the 40s, but they need some step down days. They cannot go from 75 to 40 in a shock move.

Step them down by a variety of methods. Using no heat light indoors, to small wattage outdoors, to no wattage outdoors, kind of approach. Take 4 or 5 days to graduate them down, step by step and they will be just fine.

 

[grauerholzfarm]

I moved my chicks out about a month ago. I kept them in the coop for 3 weeks without going outside because it was still back and forth in temps. I put my heat lamp on a timer so it would be off for thirty min and then on again for an hour. Then I did off for an hour and on for an hour .. and then only on for 30 min. They seemed to like it... I also had another heat lamp set for the night with red bulb in it to help them sleep. When I know it's going to get a little cooler, I turn on the timer to turn on at midnight thru 3 am. They seem to like the lamp on during windy days too.