Raising Baby Chicks in the Cold

[BackInBlack]

I live in Michigan and I'm sure many of you have heard that our winter has been abnormally harsh and cold. We would like to get baby chicks soon, but I'm not sure we have the best setup for them. So I need a few ideas on what to do when you don't have a sheltered area for new baby chicks.

We already have chickens that we got as chicks in June a few years ago that are big and healthy (one of our roosters is showing as my avatar). Our coop isn't big enough, nor set up to segregate the adults and chicks, plus, I don't want to expose the chicks to the adults until the chicks' are older and their immune systems more robust.

When we got our current chickens as chicks, we put them in a big plastic bin on our screened in back porch with a 100-watt bulb. It was warm enough outside that we didn't need a heat lamp, and within a few weeks, we were able to transition them to a 8'x8' tarp-covered pen area with the plastic bin on its side to provide additional shelter, where they stayed for a few more weeks while we built their coop.

Since our backporch is just screened in and can't really provide much shelter, that is not a real good option. Our garage doesn't have electric (the backporch does), nor does our polebarn. Plus our polebarn is aways from the house and still has quite a bit of ice and snow around it (I think the doors are still frozen shut right now). I don't want to bring the chicks into the house.

What have other people done? I didn't find any threads on this, but I can't imagine I'm the only one out there with this issue.

 

[FenceJumper]

You can put them inside. Just put newspaper in a box and use a heat lamp to keep them warm. That's how I always do it.

 

[Fred's Hens]

From some else in the Mitten and in an extremely cold niche' portion as well.

Go find some big sheets of cardboard and perhaps some moving blanket pads or whatever you wish. You CAN brood on your back porch. I brooded in zero and sub-zero weather last year. Frankly, as the calendar is now turning to April, you'll face nothing that drastic. The season has turned. You'll be fine.

Here's a link to a thread I made last year showing how one can use their imagination to do things you wouldn't think possible.

Redneck Fungshui Brooding 17 Degree Temperatures

 

[griggy]

I've been brooding mine in my laundry room. It wasn't a big deal until the last week or so when they are 5/6 weeks old and big!