Newbie question re: when to put in coop

[Bagdad Chicken Mom]

Hello Yoda,
I see we both have 10 four week old chicks. Mine are also ready to go to the coop. Good luck with putting yours in the coop. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

 

[LilbitChicken]

This is a good question, but you got a lot of great answers, I was wondering this myself!!!!

 

[firedove]

Bagdad Chicken Mom, for water if you are really concerned about contamination you can get them rabbit water bottles. They sell nozzles that fit onto a 2 liter soda bottle. It takes the chickens a bit to figure out how to catch the water drips but then they drink from them well. If your babies are going to be big when they grow up you may need to switch to a puppy water bottle.

For my chickens I just use a 5 gallon chicken water fount as soon as it gets warm enough that it isn't freezing. I put it up on a large cinder block to keep it level with their backs so it's above typical "scratched stuff" height. A little bit of stuff gets into the drinking tray, but not much. In the winter I just use an open rubber dish because it takes it longer to freeze and is easy to knock out when it is frozen.

For feed I have a 30# hanging feeder. Again it has to be hung at back height because otherwise they knock all the feed out of it. But if kept at the right height the feed stays in it pretty well and other stuff doesn't get scratched into it.

We don't have electricity to our coop either so I tend to put my chicks out there around 8 weeks old, but then the climate around here can be pretty cool. This time I didn't put them out until 11 weeks old because I wanted to be sure they could hold their own with the older chickens already in the coop.