Should I move my babies outside?

This is the weekend for action! My almost 6 week old chicks mixed Japs are presently happy in an old poultry ark, in the garage with a lamp providing light and a little heat 24/7.
My dilema is this; should I move them to their new rabbit hutch home
http://www.yorkshirepetshop.co.uk/rabbitshack-triple-rabbit-hutch-with-underrun-new-p-1226.html
outside on the patio.(it is reasonably sheltered but it is cold in Preston) where they can benifit from daylight rather than a damp dark garage or limit the lamp in the garage to 16 hours? I am hoping that the girls will start to lay eggs. I hope to eventually house them outside on the patio/grass. The compromise would be to put the hutch in the shed where there is no power.Would a camping lantern provide enough light to stimulate egg laying?
Any advice gratefully received, thank you
Jane

I think its too cold here to move my lot outside, its still dropping below freezing at night, and although they're supposed to be fairly hardy I think they would need to acclimatise rather than just have a big temperature drop. Mine are laying with about 10-12 hours of artificial light (11 watt energy saving lightbulb in a ceiling fitting) in my spare room.

hi there you say you are in preston .its always cold there lol ,my son races bmx there and im cold in 1 hour . give it a cpl of months make sure the cold snap is over mine are in the cellar and it drops to 40 c and the are huddled together in the morning .

Hi,

I recently(18th Dec) put out a flock of 4/5 week old Japanese quail into an unheated 6' X 4' shed.The doors are opened each morning at 8am and shut up at 3.30pm when the light (11 watt energy saver) goes on.It is very cold up here in the lakes and wet. The thing to remember is, quail are very hardy, as long as they are kept DRY and out of COLD winds, they'll be fine.

Have you thought about putting your new quail house into your garage, and leaving the doors open, they'll be sheltered from the wind and be kept in a dry place. Given enough light, they'll start to lay soon.
When the time comes to put them outside, they'll be used to their hutch and will continue to lay eggs.

Derek.

Thank you for all your advice. My lovely husband has run a cable to the shed so we now have light and I suppose a little heat to the shed but the birds are sheltered. The bulb is on a timer to extend daylight. The children helped clean out the shed which is usually their den and I even have a chair and a calour gas heater though thats for me and my cup of tea, not the birds!

https://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh235/Tillycat_photo/?action=view¤t=IMG_0080.jpg
https://s257.photobucket.com/albums/hh235/Tillycat_photo/?action=view¤t=IMG_0085.jpg
The best news though is that to my untrained eye there seem to be only 3 males in my batch of twelve chicks. I was expected the ratio to be higher. I incubated 24 mixed eggs from ebay with help, thirteen hatched and 1 died almost immediately. the males seem to be tuxedo,range and one which is a mixture. Most of the females are range( I have identified them from the very useful pictures on this forum) though I have two beautiful fawn types and one tiny tuxedo. Could I breed from a range pair or should I introduce a fresh male. At the moment the males on in the bottom run and the females have the top two which have more light untill I am sure that my sexing is correct. I am not quite sure what to do now, should I keep the males?
Jane

Hi Jane,

As all the eggs have come from one breeder, I personally would buy in unrelated males to go with your females.Or even hatch out more eggs.

How have you sexed the range/tux birds?

I see your from Preston, if you want any normal coloured male birds, or even a few females, I'm going to be in Preston on 6th Febuary at The Royal Hospital. I could meet you there. I could even let you have some hatching eggs, if you would like them better. Just PM me if you want any.

Derek.

Thanks Derek, I have sent a PM to you
Jane

Sorry not quite sure how I managed to post such a large image rather than a link, but they are lovely to me!

That bird is lovely...Range is such a pretty colour.

Thank you, they are lovely though I am quite taken with the Italian colouring. The one in your picture is beautiful, is that Italian ?

love the range and tuxedo!

The tuxedo chicks have been unsucessful, out of three hatched chicks; one died imediately the female is tiny and weedy and the male is very agressive, but their colouring is lovely. I have to say mine are a lowly mixed bunch and the white chest feathers are quite patchy. I must google for images of "proper" ones.

if you want to hatch more buy of a breeder that you know will have good unrelated birds, because on ebay you sometimes just don't know.