*Sigh* I've made the decision to leave my chicks outside for the night. I'm terrified something will happen and I need some reasurrance (or the opportunity to run out and gather them up to bring them back inside).
I have 8 of them, all of them are almost completely feathered except one, whos also the smallest, but she's catching up. They will be 6 weeks old on Saturday.
They've been in their coop and run all week during the day, and I've been bringing them back inside to their brooder at night. The heat lamp is almost completely out of the box (I've been moving it up slightly every week and lately some of them have been seen panting, so I had to turn it off for a little while). They LOVE it in their coop (which is 4 foot by 8 foot). As soon as I put them out there in the morning, they flap their wings and run around it. Their food and water intake as pretty much doubled in the last week too.
It was in the high seventies, low eighties all day and the low for the night is sixty one degrees farenheit. Their coop is made of pallets that have hardware cloth attached to the inside. It's pretty sturdy and definatley predator proof. The problem is that it is VERY ventillated because of this and I'm afraid it will get too drafty in there. I'll see if I can find a pic of my coop and post it.
Do you think they will be ok in there for tonight or should I bring them in? I'm a very worried chick mama.
I'm gonna post pictures of my chicks (so you can see their feather development), but keep in mind the pictures are from a week ago so they've obviously grown quite a bit since then (I don't have any recent photos).
I also found a pic of my coop. This is the front side of it, and the door has since been covered in a piece of plywood because I didn't feel it was safe enough.
I know I posted a similar thread a couple day ago, I just need reasurrance from the experts
I have 8 of them, all of them are almost completely feathered except one, whos also the smallest, but she's catching up. They will be 6 weeks old on Saturday.
They've been in their coop and run all week during the day, and I've been bringing them back inside to their brooder at night. The heat lamp is almost completely out of the box (I've been moving it up slightly every week and lately some of them have been seen panting, so I had to turn it off for a little while). They LOVE it in their coop (which is 4 foot by 8 foot). As soon as I put them out there in the morning, they flap their wings and run around it. Their food and water intake as pretty much doubled in the last week too.
It was in the high seventies, low eighties all day and the low for the night is sixty one degrees farenheit. Their coop is made of pallets that have hardware cloth attached to the inside. It's pretty sturdy and definatley predator proof. The problem is that it is VERY ventillated because of this and I'm afraid it will get too drafty in there. I'll see if I can find a pic of my coop and post it.
Do you think they will be ok in there for tonight or should I bring them in? I'm a very worried chick mama.
I'm gonna post pictures of my chicks (so you can see their feather development), but keep in mind the pictures are from a week ago so they've obviously grown quite a bit since then (I don't have any recent photos).
I also found a pic of my coop. This is the front side of it, and the door has since been covered in a piece of plywood because I didn't feel it was safe enough.
I know I posted a similar thread a couple day ago, I just need reasurrance from the experts
