can i see pics of "fully feathered out"?

haTHOR

Songster
10 Years
Mar 28, 2009
744
15
176
Near Asheville, NC
my red sex links are doing great outside during he day here in arkansas with temps in the upper 50s or above. their age is somewhat vague as my seller had chicks up to three weeks different in age together. they should be between 5 and 7.5 weeks old. these are my first chicks so i am not sure exactly what fully feathered out looks like.

can you post a few pics?
 
If they are at least fve weeks old they should be fine. I think they should be fully feathered out. Are you wondering if they can be outside at night too? If so, yes they should be fine, but they still need a heat lamp if your temps get lewer then 50deg or so. They huggle, that helps keep them warm, but you dont want them to smother each other.
 
well, they are still too small to be in with the other hens in a confined space (ie roosting). my leghorns are super bossy. mostly i'd just like to move them out of the house and into the main chicken yard during the day, but in a dogloo with a bit of a yard fenced around it so they can forage and not escape through the main fence. i'll still bring them in at night until they are the same size as the rest of the flock.

i guess the question is can they be outside all day now if it's 50 degrees or higher, even with rain, clouds, etc. etc. as long as they have adequate shelter? there are only two of that makes a difference about keeping each other warm.
 
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I've read that "fully feathered out" is generally around 8 weeks old. At that age, most chickens can handle temps down to about 30 degrees.

Our temps still got into the 30s until last week and mine were still using the heat lamp (though maybe they didn't really need it) at night until last week (9 weeks old). Then, suddenly at just under 10 weeks old, they just stopped using it... they started perching all over the coop (which some had already been doing for weeks, others not) and ignoring the light. No one slept under it. So that's when I decided to take the heat lamp away and they have been just fine and it was an easy transition - they weren't even scared of the dark. They probably didn't need it after 7 or 8 weeks, but I just let them wean themselves off of it and it worked really well.

Anyway, I would go by the idea that at 8 weeks old, they can handle down to 30 degrees without supplemental heat.
 
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Look on my BYC page. I have golden comets aka red sexlinks that are fully feathered out at 6 weeks in the older shots of them in the brooder.
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Here are some pics of our Red Star pullets:

4-5 months:(about)
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And here they are at about 1-2 months(about). The 2 Red Stars are to the right, and the other 2 are Buff Orpingtons:
(Oh and sorry about the funny costumes on them. This is the only picture I have of them at that age! lol I was messing around with Paint Shop)
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