Am I ready to sleep outside?

[Alex15]

So this is my suspected light sussex Roo, he's six weeks old now and not quite fully feathered out:




And these are my two little silkies:




And this is the rest of my flock. Everyone else is quite nicely feathered out:





So firstly how do you tell if a silkie is even fully feathered? As they're always just balls of luff anyway. And secondly, even if the silkies and the LS roo arent ready for outside sleeping, considering theres 8 of them, will they be okay and keep eachother warm? Its been getting down to about 43 degrees. Its still warm during the day and they've had a fair bit of play time in their pen the last few days and definitely like it. Lst night I had them out until after sunset and it started getting cold and they all started making their deeply unhappy chirps and it broke my heart. Then the one silkie came wandering over to me in the middle of the yard (which they dont normally do) and then the other one came, as if they were coming for help/warmth. It was so cute but sad at the same time! It's hard to leave my babies outside! They've been sleeping in my room!

Also they havent had a heat lamp for about two weeks and I was thinking maybe I could try leaving them out with their box inside the pen for a little while? I just dont want to put them out too early!

 

[iguanasal]

I have young chicks outside make sure there are no drafts around the cage I did this by placing plastic walls from a old storage shack around the pen also put a roof to ensure cats or predators don't get in and I placed the light on one side of the cage/pen and the water and food on the other I also place a long planter pot with dry dirt in it so they can bathe and eat some as grit but it only been getting to about 60 here in s Florida 40 seems really cold

 

[Feathers n Fur]

I have between 7 chicks between the ages of 4 and 6 wks old and all but the 3 4wk olds are fully feathered - they still have a small bit of fluff on lower back - and have been without the lamp for a few days without issue in teh basement. My plan is to wait another week or two so the youngest are 5 or 6 wks old then move them to the coop with the big girls. I plan to move their brooder box in so I can attach the heat lamp and make sure there is a draft free space for them. Our day temps are in the low 50's right now and at night it gets to low 40's upper 30's. With one heat lamp it raised the coop temp by 10 degrees so I plan to put two lamps over the brooder and see how that works. If the weather outside does not cooperate I will wait an additional week or two before moving them out.

My advice is watch the weather and if in doubt wait a bit.