when can I let my 10 week old chicks out??

[Beth77]

Hi, my 3 mixed chicks are 10 weeks old now (a couple are maybe slightly older). I just bought them a few days ago and they currently live in a large dog cage in the house. I have 4 adult hens outside who are an established flock but yesterday I tried them outside with them in the run and they got on fine apart from the usual pecking each other over food (nothing major). When can they go out permanently? It's Scotland so it rains most of the time and there's a high of 19° at best!!

 

[rlbrand]

you really need to read first about quarantine. you can let your new birds outside, but not with your other birds. At least not for a month...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/12751/urgent-reminder-please-quarantine-newly-acquired-birds

once they have been quarantined properly then you can put them in the coop but separate, either by another fence where they can see the other birds but not get to each other.. that gets them used to each other. you could even have them sleep the first few nights in the dog kennel in the coop. Keep an eye on them when you first put them all together make sure there's nothing serious you need to segregate. its only natural for a new pecking order to fall into place, and your older hens are going to make sure the new ones know they're on top of it... you can search many threads on BYC to find lots of different techniques to safely introduce new chickens into your flock.

 

[nab58]

Once your chicks have their adult feathers they can go outside. What is the temperature at night? I just put my 4 week old chicks outside yesterday but I was worried the evenings were too chilly (60f) so I brought their Eco-glo heater in case they needed it.