Since I'm in FL can I take away Dixie?

[M To The Maxx]

I would like to take away Dixie from her chicks now. Can they be outside in their cage with out a brooder light. Like I said we live in Florida so it is mild here.

 

[chics in the sun]

How old are they? Why do you want to take them away from Dixie? Less work for you!

 

[M To The Maxx]

Quote:
3 of them are 5 days old and the other 3 are a week old. Dixie is just making a mess in their cage and like she is pushing the pine shavings into their water and I'm fine with cleaning it out but I have school too.

 

[7L Farm]

Personally I wouldn't but I have 30 biddies that I hatched & their a week old living outside. I do provide them a heat lamp at night. I'm in Texas so our temps are close.

 

[M To The Maxx]

I have a heat lamp that I could put over head but I was just wondering if I didn't have to.

 

[chics in the sun]

Can Dixie and the chicks - hey they are almost a band

- live outside together? She should defend the chicks from the other chickens, and having a broody raise them is the easiest way to raise chicks, IMHO. She will keep them warm in the evenings, as it is still a bit too cold out here for chicks on their own. This morning my car said it was 58 degress, and I know Lutz is usually a bit colder than here. Set a little nest box up for her in the coop and see how she does.

 

[bock]

If they are with their mother, they don't need a heat lamp. You would cook the poor girl! Does she have a large enough cage to take her chicks outside to scratch around? You could just move her food and water farther away from the nest. Also, what kind of food and water container do they have?

 

[M To The Maxx]

Quote:
I wish I could but we don't have the room to do that....

 

[chics in the sun]

In my experience, the chicks in the cage made just as big a mess as any adult chicken - waterer full of shavings, feed thrown everywhere. It was so much less work when I had a girl go broody and raise them out in her own little section of the coop. I just sort of added a cage area onto the side of the original coop. It didn't cost much, and she had her own little nest box for the chicks. Then I got a nipple waterer, and that helped, too.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Maxx, as long as you've been around this forum, I thought you'd know better. The chicks need a heat source until they feather out, somewhere around 4 to 5 weeks old. The recommended temperatures on this site are conservative and chicks can often do well in cooler temperatures, but that depends on many other things, including if there are enough of them to keep each other warm. And they definitely need to be out of a draft.

I don't know what your coop and run looks like. If you have a decent sized coop and run, put her in there with her chicks and let her raise them with the flock, unless you have some history with a chick-killing hen. Some flocks have hens in them that will search out and kill young chicks, but not that many do. And most broodies will protect their chicks, but not all will. There is a risk with this, but there are risks in any approach.

If the coop and run is tight, it would be good to have a predator proof place outside to keep them. As long as there is a place in it to get them out of the weather at night and it is where it will not flood in a heavy rain, they should be OK.

Another option is to put the hen in the coop and run and raise the chicks yourself in a brooder without the hen to take care of integration. You'll have to decide what is your best option.

If the water is your only problem, can you raise the waterer up out of the shavings? Maybe build a platform six inches or more above the shavings and secure the waterer on that. At their ages, they should be able to get up there, especially if you put a brick or something in there as an intermediate step. Notice I said SECURE the waterer so hey cannot turn it over.

Good luck! I'm confident you will come up with something.