When can chicks be moved outside?

Depends on what "mostly enclosed" means. It's super windy here today, and you guys usually get our weather within a day (slightly northwest of Louisville, Ky). With a lamp would be fine as long as where they are (where the lamp is actually) is draft free. My guys have been out in their little coop since week three with a heat lamp, but their coop is totally enclosed. I put plastic up around their run so that when I let them out into it, the wind is mostly blocked.
BTW - Both me and my brother went to Marshall
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Oh, how cool. I graduate from Marshall this spring, and my husband will be through in Dec.

It would be extra large dog crates like these:
vari+kennel+200.jpg
 
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Hmmm...I'd probably wait a bit then. Hooking up a heatlamp safely inside one of those (distance from plastic and chicks heads) would be iffy. You could always put plastic over the front, but the safety of the lamp issue would worry me...more for night time temps. And would there be room for a feeder/waterer inside? And you'd need to put a big board or something overtop, because the angle of the carrier would allow rain in big time through those side grills (and of course the front grill if it wasn't covered).

Do you guys have a garage they could go to where the carrier might work for another week or two without a lamp needed??
 
This would be on our porch and then I had thought to put the heat lamps clamped on the front so they are directly on the grill - and these are extra large crates, but
I can also put them in the rabbit hutch - inside the barn. . .hmmmm, not sure
 
Fred's Hens :

Rabbit hutch in the barn. Better plan.

This is my brooder, with week old chicks in an unheated, 40 degree garage. They're just fine. At 4 weeks, yours will be fine in the barn.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/69833_dscf3094.jpg

Yeah...the barn sounds like a better bet, so that wind couldn't blow in on them. If it's in the barn, either the carrier or the hutch should work, especially since you mentioned rigging the lamp to aim in the front. But the hutch sounds like it'd have more space????
I'd go another week with a lamp full time. Then, if the temps maintain, leave your lamp off during the main part of the day that following week, (but on at night). Based on how they do, by six weeks or so try without the lamp at night.​
 

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