Tried to move baby chickens outside, but they got stressed of the darkness in their coop.

[BigBlueHen53]

I’ve always grown chicks outside from week 1 and never had problems.

Nice if your climate allows it.

 

[Blooie]

Nice if your climate allows it.

I raise mine outdoors from the start as well. Our springtime “chick season” temps are still in the twenties, dipping into the teens, with sideways blowing snow. Under their Mama Heating Pad, they absolutely thrive. They start weaning themselves off heat at 2 weeks, barely use any heat at all by 3 weeks, and at 4 weeks they are off all heat and are fully integrated with the flock. That’s when we remove the brooder pen from the run completely. Every batch, every time for the last 7 years.

 

[abenardini]

I raise mine outdoors from the start as well. Our springtime “chick season” temps are still in the twenties, dipping into the teens, with sideways blowing snow. Under their Mama Heating Pad, they absolutely thrive. They start weaning themselves off heat at 2 weeks, barely use any heat at all by 3 weeks, and at 4 weeks they are off all heat and are fully integrated with the flock. That’s when we remove the brooder pen from the run completely. Every batch, every time for the last 7 years.

That's eventually where I want to be. I used to raise mine in a brooder in the garage at our old property, but we don't have a garage at the new one we put our house down on a couple years ago. Mine brood outdoors on the deck and have a heat plate only. I was amazed to see that they feathered faster and didn't really use the plate a ton, only the first couple of weeks. At night, the temps in my area (outside of Jacksonville, FL,) were in the low 50s at night during the first few weeks of brooding and mine seemed good with it. I kept them from getting drafts on the side of the brooder but good ventilation. Moved them out to the coop we finished up in the nick of time when they were about 3.5 weeks old. They're really happy and doing well.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I raise mine outdoors from the start as well. Our springtime “chick season” temps are still in the twenties, dipping into the teens, with sideways blowing snow. Under their Mama Heating Pad, they absolutely thrive. They start weaning themselves off heat at 2 weeks, barely use any heat at all by 3 weeks, and at 4 weeks they are off all heat and are fully integrated with the flock. That’s when we remove the brooder pen from the run completely. Every batch, every time for the last 7 years.

Amazing. Can I get a pic of your brooder setup?

 

[Wolf River]

Hi! My chickens are now 4 weeks old, and I know it's a bit early to move them outside, but the weather has been nice lately and they have grown out of their brooder and they have been outside at daytime the last 5 days, and they just love being outside. I have the Eglu Cube coop from Omlet, and I installed a brooder heat plate inside of the coop since they are only 4 weeks old and also used sawdust inside the coop instead of the rooster bars because their feet are too small for the rooster bars I think. They seemed to settle inside as long as the door was open so they got daylight inside the coop, and it was nice and warm in the coop, but when I closed the door for the night they got extremely stressed and I just had to take them back inside the house for the night because they didn't stop chirping. The thing is that I live in the arctic and we have midnight sun, so they aren't used to darkness at night in their brooder. What should I do?

I have a coop that has zero light inside too. I cut out a 14x14 inch square and framed in a glass window. Plexiglass would work also.

 

[abenardini]

I have a coop that has zero light inside too. I cut out a 14x14 inch square and framed in a glass window. Plexiglass would work also.

^This is a good idea. I have the same on mine but do allow natural light into the coop. No nightlights or any artificial light.