Too much change at once?

[RevRico]

I'm moving my 4 week old chickens to their coop this weekend. They need the space at this point. I keep reading about locking them in for 2 weeks to make them think it's home, and to do that I need to put food and water in there with them.

I don't want to keep using the mason jar feeders in the coop because they're too small already, and with the extra space they'll just keep getting dumped. So I'm going to switch them to the elbow in the bucket style mess free feeder, as well as horizontal nipple watering jug.

Is this going to be too much change for them all at once? They won't need to be moved again, but is changing house, feeding situation, and water all at once a recipe for problems?

 

[WhoDatChick]

I don’t know if it’s too much at once but make sure they know how to use the nipples before you leave.. I saw where someone put those out and their chicks didn’t know how to use so they were without water all day...

 

[imnukensc]

Not too much change at once, but as noted previously, make sure they know how to use the nipple waterer. FWIW, I would never lock my chicks/chickens in the coop. When I wanted to get my chicks transitioned to the coop, I left them in the attached run. In the evening, I would close them in the coop and then let them out into the run in the morning. Probably did that for a week or so until they got with the program and went in the coop on their own to roost.

 

[WhoDatChick]

Not too much change at once, but as noted previously, make sure they know how to use the nipple waterer. FWIW, I would never lock my chicks/chickens in the coop. When I wanted to get my chicks transitioned to the coop, I left them in the attached run. In the evening, I would close them in the coop and then let them out into the run in the morning. Probably did that for a week or so until they got with the program and went in the coop on their own to roost.

That’s the same thing I did.. mine were first in the prefab coop and I’d put them in at night until they went on their own... then when I moved them to the big run they knew to go up the ladder even though different home..

 

[RevRico]

Not too much change at once, but as noted previously, make sure they know how to use the nipple waterer. FWIW, I would never lock my chicks/chickens in the coop. When I wanted to get my chicks transitioned to the coop, I left them in the attached run. In the evening, I would close them in the coop and then let them out into the run in the morning. Probably did that for a week or so until they got with the program and went in the coop on their own to roost.

That's what I'm going to get too, probably next week. I need to build their run yet is the thing. Too many things have come to a head at once. They're getting too big, bored, and messy inside, so getting them into the coop comes first, then fixing the brakes on my truck so I have room to paint the wood for the run and layout the hardware cloth, and then the fun process of shredding the 50 or so trees worth of branches we cut down last week to have woodchips in the run for them.

I am going to spend some time trying to teach them the waterer, hoping taking away all their water and pointing them at the red nipples will get the point across since they won't let me touch them at all. I'm going to be starting it tomorrow in the house to both start them learning and get an idea for how high it will need to be in the coop. Once the run is done, food and water will be exclusively there just to minimize my cleaning headache.

 

[blackdog043]

You will just have to make sure they know how to use both new styles, since they're used to the chick style. I have a chick size no waste elbow feeder and nipple waterer in my brooder, along with the chick style. Most of the chicks use both styles.

 

[RevRico]

I guess I was worried about nothing. I just put a 4 gallon bucket with 2 horizontal nipples into the kennel with the girls. After 2 minutes of climbing on top of each other in the opposite corner, one barred rock walked up and started pecking at a nipple and now they're all doing it.