When to put Silkies outside

[hatrabbit]

A friend of mine received 5 Silkie chicks from a project at her daughter's school. She's raising them in the house with a heat lamp. They're 4 weeks old and she can't wait to put them in an outside chicken house. Roughly when should they be ready for this?

 

[bargain]

Many variables but here is what we do. We wait until at least 3 months or more before they hit the ground. Even at 3 months, if the weather is tooo cold, they can suffer. We move them from small brrooder boxes to bigger ones as they grow. Silkies are beautiful but also frail and delicate Underneath all that fluff is a very small body, that is very susceptable to drafts and rain, winds, snow and ice. The longer I can wait the better.

editing to say that our Mobile tractors have no Heat source and that is a large part of the reason we wait. Thought I had said that, sorry. Even as I type, in about 30 minutes, I'm going to go out and wrap more of our chicken coops. Temp again is key.

 

[sourland]

Realistically, they can be moved outside at any time, but they will require a heat source until ambient temperatures increase - depending upon where she lives.

 

[grannychicken54]

I have 5 silkies and we put ours in the chicken house from day one but they were in a fenced off area from the other chickens and they had a heat lamp and we kept the temp at 95 for the first week . They are now 6 months old and if the weather is nice we let them go outside but they still have a heat lamp at night because it still cold and they have thrived. Sweetest little chicks they love to be held and petted.

 

[gunhoney]

We have two adult layers who get a heat lamp beginning at 5am. It does get chilly here in GA. I keep parrots as pets so I am very sensitive when it comes to keeping ALL my birds warm.

My two adult birds live on our screened-in porch, second story, north facing with the back of their coop to the screen. The winter guards are on and even still I have a heat lamp to them. They are much more pet quality than some chickens I've met and those skinny little bodies just don't hold heat like we do. Especially since I've only got the two in that coop right now, until my teenagers are big enough to go outside, it will stay that way.