When can my RIR chicks go out?

[chickadee2]

I am trying to figure out how /when to put our 4 new pullets out too. They were 3 weeks old yesterday. I am thinking of putting them out in 2 more weeks with a divided coop from our 3 1/2 year old ladies. My busy husband is unhappy with the time and expense of adding some sort of an extra or temporary coop where they can have a look but not touch intro for a couple of weeks. It is not easy. The divided coop is the easy part. The temporary coop difficult. Should it be a temporary coop one more permanent for emergency use? The expense of a permanent coop for 2 or so weeks is a difficult ($) decision to make. This does give us the option of separating a chicken later who has a problem.

Old Ladies, 1 Americana, 1 Barred Rock
New Ladies, 1 Americana, 1 Salmon Faverole, 1 Speckled Sussex, 1 Silver laced Wynadotte

 

[highpointfarm]

I would highly suggest a seperate coop.... if a hen goes broody, if a hen gets sick, if you get a extra roo, if you have younger chicks...
This A frame was our original coop when we got 6 chickens... we have just kept this one for the reasons stated above... we have since upgraded =]

 

[LaynaDon95]

I am trying to figure out how /when to put our 4 new pullets out too. They were 3 weeks old yesterday. I am thinking of putting them out in 2 more weeks with a divided coop from our 3 1/2 year old ladies. My busy husband is unhappy with the time and expense of adding some sort of an extra or temporary coop where they can have a look but not touch intro for a couple of weeks. It is not easy. The divided coop is the easy part. The temporary coop difficult. Should it be a temporary coop one more permanent for emergency use? The expense of a permanent coop for 2 or so weeks is a difficult ($) decision to make. This does give us the option of separating a chicken later who has a problem.

Old Ladies, 1 Americana, 1 Barred Rock
New Ladies, 1 Americana, 1 Salmon Faverole, 1 Speckled Sussex, 1 Silver laced Wynadotte

I am planning on dividing my coop into 2 parts in the near future. As of now I have chicken tractors I'm using for things like chicks that have outgrown the brooder, sick hens, and mean roosters. I love them. They have saved me a lot of stress.
They are relatively cheap to build if you know where to get parts. The only things we had to buy as far as I know were screws (nails staples, etc), chicken wire, and sheet plastic.
We used wood pallets and leftovers from construction sites. If you know someone in construction then that's really easy to get. At the end of a job they have HUGE piles of wood that they just burn. They will usually let you take it. We had some corrugated tin that my mom's, friends, husband (Did you catch that? =P) had piles of at work that his boss didn't want.
So you might have to buy a little more than we did, but they are still really cheap.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/content/knowhow/chicks/chicken-tractor-design

Here is a less permanent design. It would be just fine to put some chicks in, though. You could make it as big or as small as you wanted, and put it in the coop so the chicks and hens could see each other.

There are tons of ideas for chicken tractors. They can be made out of almost anything. If you like that idea just google it and you will come up with bagillions of ideas. One of them is bound to suit you. Just be creative!

 

[highpointfarm]

Here is a nice CHEAP EASY idea =]

http://www.redbayfarm.com/chicken_tractor.html

 

[LaynaDon95]

OMG!!! The dog house is GENIUS!!! I'm going to faint from sheer geniusness!

Why didn't I think of that?!?!

 

[highpointfarm]

LOL you could even take one of those large metal ones and cover it in 1/2 inch hardware cloth =] with tin roof on top.... the problem with the dog cage in the picture is i would be worried about them getting wet when it rained and getting chilled ='/

 

[LaynaDon95]

I don't think water could very easily get into that kind of dog house...
I could be wrong but I think that kind is pretty water resistant. But you could whatever you felt like. It's the idea that's amazing.