Taking over some sickly chicks

[rosemarythyme]

We are starting to have pretty warm weather. Obviously chickens live in hot climates all the time, but I haven’t seen much about if chicks can get too hot. Will they be ok with 85-90 F temperatures in the day? They are about 5 weeks old now. I noticed they were panting quite a bit today, and I have made a few shade structures to supplement their tree shade. Any tips on helping them beat the heat?

Then I also had a few questions about transitioning to sleeping in a coop instead of the brooder. Looking around, it seems like they are ready for this? Nighttime temps won’t go below 50 F, and their coop feels a good 5 degrees warmer just by feel. However, they don’t seem to like sleeping in there yet. This evening I went to check on them after dark and they were sleeping in the open. I went ahead and shut them in the coop for tonight but started to wonder if I should? I wondered if they would be disoriented by the darkness after being used to the lamp all the time.

Yes they can get too hot. Heat is harder on a chicken than cold, their feathers work great to insulate against cold, but don't help with heat. So 0F is nothing to a chicken, but 100F can cause distress and difficulty. Deep shade helps a lot, I put out shallow pans of water (I use clay plant saucers) for foot baths, as the skin of their feet help them cool off. There's a lot of threads about how to handle heat, if that's an issue in your climate.

Chicks don't voluntarily move into a coop. Unless they were raised in the coop, they don't know it's home when you finally transition them over. Some of us lock them into the coop for a few days or even weeks to help home them to it, however I don't recommend that in hot weather, unless the coop is extremely well ventilated. So in lieu of that, you will need to show them that the coop is home by putting them in at night.