My 5 chicks that I hatched out are two weeks old today. We still have them under a light and inside the house. The 3 Black Andalusian are getting VERY big, I think I will have to seperate them out soon. My questions is?? How long do I have to keep them under a light and when is the appropriate time to introduce them to the rest of the flock. I have 15 more eggs (white leghorn, black andalusian and old english whites) in the incubator and due to hatch out on Aug 15th.
They need the warmth until they are around 6 weeks old - and mostly feathered out in summer. I go a couple more weeks at least in winter. You should drop the temp in the brooder by 5 degrees a week until it's around room temp (70) I move my guys at around 4 weeks from an inside brooder to my outside brooder (in my outbuilding, a 3x9 dog kennel that I've reinforced with hardware cloth to keep them from slipping through the fencing, with heat lamp) Then from there they go to a grow out pen somewhere around 6-8 weeks depending on weather and how many chicks I have, etc. The grow-out pen is a separate fenced off area inside the main run where the babies can get used to the older flock and vice versa, but they can't get to each other directly. I don't try to integrate the chicks into the larger flock until they are at least 12 weeks or older, OR until they have enough size on them that they can get away from/hold their own with the older chickens. The fewer chicks I have to integrate, the longer they stay in the grow-out pen. This progression has kept integration/pecking issues to a minimum.
I do pretty much the same thing as arlee453. I moved my chicks out to the coop at 5 weeks and turned on a lamp for heat at night. It was warm enough outside that I didn't have to have the lamp on during the day.