I have 25 meat birds in my garage that are 2 weeks old. Yes they are smelly little things but they are in the garage(non attached). They are now getting tail feathers and some on their bodies. I live in Central Michigan. The weather is warm during the day but here lately the temps at night go down in the thirty's sometimes a little frost on the ground. The gaylord box in which they are in is getting a little small for them now. My dumb questions is: If I give them a pen with a shelter about the same size that they are in now with a heat lamp will they be ok at night when it does get down in the low thirties? I don't want to kill them. Just give them some more room durning the day with out having to move them back inside for the night.
Two weeks old is a little young to handle 30 degree weather, but if you close them in at night and have the heat lamp so they can stay around 80ish, they should be all right. This is just my opinion, someone more knowledgeable will probably set you straight..... Eric
you need to becareful and make sure the general temp of the new enclosure is 80. if not, they'll end up hovering too close with each other to where they'll suffocate each other and you'll end up with dead birds in the morning.
As a fellow central Michigan resident, I'll try to help. Mine turned 3 weeks old yesterday, and were outgrowing my brooder. I put them out this morning, realizing that today was going to be relatively warm, but the next few days are not, and frankly, I'm a bit concerned. According to Joel Salatin's chart in "Pastured Poultry Profit$", meat chickens are not ready to be outside in near freezing temps until they are at least 3 weeks old. And even then, you need to make sure you "harden them off", meaning that you should make sure their brooder/coop temperatures are lowered slowly, over a period of several days, if possible. So, to answer your question. Wait another week until putting them out. From next Wednesday on, the weather looks to be pretty warm.
Quote:What he said. At two weeks, I started raising my heat lamp about three inches/day until they were three weeks old. Then I put them out in the tractor. I put my heat lamp in there, and turn it on when it's really cold at night. I'm also in central Michigan.
Gersbud, If you knitted each one a warm blankie and made sure they were all covered up before turning out the lights they would keep toasty warm at night. There is no such thing as a dumb question, but there are dumb answeres!
Well, this morning was the big test, I guess. They are now about 3 1/2 weeks old (50 meat birds), and they survived the frost this morning, with no external heat sources. Whew! I was pretty worried when I looked outside and saw the frost on the ground this morning...