- Mar 27, 2009
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Hi,
My first time on the forum. I just purchased 7 barred rock pullet chicks and it looks like some are a few days older than others. They are now a little over 3 weeks old. My first question is this: all the chicks pretty much have feathers all over their body except for one. She has feathers just on the edge of her wings and just little tiny tail feathers forming. She is eating well, drinking well and interacting with the others just fine. Her body is growing normally, her feet are getting as big as the others. She just doesn't have feathers. Is this something I should be concerned about? My second question is concerned with temperature. At first I had the chicks in a cardboard box in a room in our house. But the birds quickly got too big for that. So I built a bigger box to give them more room and this box has to stay in the basement (with a warming lamp on them). The basement is about 10-12 degrees cooler than the upstairs house. I was a little concerned that it might be too cool for them. This evening I put a thermometer in the box to see how warm it was and found that it was about 78 degrees. Is this too cool for 3 week old chicks? I read somewhere that the first week should be 90 deg and then 5 deg cooler every week after that.
BTW, I love this site and this forum. Good stories and good information.
My first time on the forum. I just purchased 7 barred rock pullet chicks and it looks like some are a few days older than others. They are now a little over 3 weeks old. My first question is this: all the chicks pretty much have feathers all over their body except for one. She has feathers just on the edge of her wings and just little tiny tail feathers forming. She is eating well, drinking well and interacting with the others just fine. Her body is growing normally, her feet are getting as big as the others. She just doesn't have feathers. Is this something I should be concerned about? My second question is concerned with temperature. At first I had the chicks in a cardboard box in a room in our house. But the birds quickly got too big for that. So I built a bigger box to give them more room and this box has to stay in the basement (with a warming lamp on them). The basement is about 10-12 degrees cooler than the upstairs house. I was a little concerned that it might be too cool for them. This evening I put a thermometer in the box to see how warm it was and found that it was about 78 degrees. Is this too cool for 3 week old chicks? I read somewhere that the first week should be 90 deg and then 5 deg cooler every week after that.
BTW, I love this site and this forum. Good stories and good information.
