NEED ANSWERS ON CHICKS and Cold weather

Once they are all feathered they should be fine. We are really cold too and I jsut put a 250 heat bulb
with them and mine have all been fine.
Nice thick bedding too.

 

I have been waiting to put my 12 wk old chicks out in the coop. Right now they are in a huge dog crate in the basement which only gets down to 50 degrees inside when it is -10 degrees at night!

 

If you feel guilty about putting them out too early add a heat lamp - or just a bare bulb so if they want they can crowd under it.

By 8 weeks though they will huddle with each other if they get cold. They will be fine.

 

I just put my 4 9-12 week old silkies outside a few weeks ago. They seem to be happier with more room, and it dropped to close to 0 at night a few days after I put them out there and they are doing great. They are in an uninsulated, but secure and draft free coop with no heat because I am more paranoid about looking out and seeing my coop on fire than the chickens freezing. There are 5 17 week old BO's out there too, but the big chickens and little chickens pretty much just stay in their own lil cliques. Reminds me of high school when I go out there, lol.

 

We put are small flock of orpington's out at 10 week's old.
Are orpington's are fine and it is 20 outdoors.

 

I put my latest batch of chicks (welsummers, RIRs and wyandottes) into an unheated coop when they were six weeks. That was around the beginning of December and it was cold here then (in the teens and below at night). They looked fully feathered to me at that time. I added a heat lamp to the unheated coop for a week, just in case.

They were fine. At first they huddled under the heat lamp, and after I took it away they huddled together in a corner. Eventually they learned to use the roosts.

 

Condition them down to the colder temps and their feathers will respond. They cannot do this over night.

Take out the 250 watt and install a lower wattage, say 150 watt. This will condition them, using a step down approach for two weeks.