How close are my chicks to being fully feathered?

[Flixflaxnoob]

I'm itching to get them out of my house and into their chicken tractor. We've had a lot of cold, rainy days here in PA, but temps are expecting to go up in the next week with still some rain in the forecast. That being said, I've only brought 3 of the chicks outside briefly in the past week.

I think they are mostly feathered at almost 5 weeks. Would they still need a slow transition to being moved outside? It will be hard to add supplemental heating to their chicken tractor/coop.

 

[Debbie292d]

What breed are they? Most are fully feathered at around 6 weeks but still would need supplemental heat for a week or two when temps at night fall to below 50F.

We just use a Cozy Coop (flat panel radiant heater) so they can lean on it if they get cold.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Can you bring them out during the day and bring them back in at night for a bit until it gets warmer at night?

 

[member 544621]

I move chicks outside when the nighttime temp is 50 or higher and they are at least 5 weeks old.

 

[Flixflaxnoob]

What breed are they? Most are fully feathered at around 6 weeks but still would need supplemental heat for a week or two when temps at night fall to below 50F.

We just use a Cozy Coop (flat panel radiant heater) so they can lean on it if they get cold.

Buff, wyandottes, barred rock, and white plymouth rock

I think the white one is a little younger and is behind the others in getting all her feathers.

 

[Flixflaxnoob]

Can you bring them out during the day and bring them back in at night for a bit until it gets warmer at night?

The one time I felt comfortable getting outside for a few minutes, it was a hassle rounding them up one by one. I was only able to transport 3 of them. They are currently in an XL wire dog crate that requires two people to carry and just barely fit through my house doors, so I can't take the entire brooder in and out easily. I am planning to move them to the garage this weekend until nights consistently stay above 50F, but by then I'm sure they will be fully feathered.

 

[ShrekDawg]

The one time I felt comfortable getting outside for a few minutes, it was a hassle rounding them up one by one. I was only able to transport 3 of them. They are currently in an XL wire dog crate that requires two people to carry and just barely fit through my house doors, so I can't take the entire brooder in and out easily. I am planning to move them to the garage this weekend until nights consistently stay above 50, but by then I'm sure they will be fully feathered.

Ahhh okay that makes sense. I think moving them to the garage would be a good transition for them.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Garage should be fine. You really want to have them acclimating to somewhere between whatever your current brooder temps are, and whatever the outside temps are.

Contrary to popular belief chicks don't need to be fully feathered to go out. Yours are "feathered enough" to be housed outside in 40s without issue and probably down towards the 30s BUT but they need to be acclimated first.

 

[Debbie292d]

Garage should be fine. You really want to have them acclimating to somewhere between whatever your current brooder temps are, and whatever the outside temps are.

Contrary to popular belief chicks don't need to be fully feathered to go out. Yours are "feathered enough" to be housed outside in 40s without issue and probably down towards the 30s BUT but they need to be acclimated first.

Breed definitely matters as I'm so used to the silkies and if there are frizzles in the bunch, it's even more picky what they can handle. Thus the cozy coop always seems to be our answer as if they don't need it, it's only a couple hundred watts we're wasting. When we had that cold spell earlier this winter we took our 2-month-olds out of the temp coop and put them in a brooder inside as they were cold even with that panel heater running. We were going to have to board the door up so they couldn't come out as it was sub-zero windchills and had they come out day or night, they'd have frozen to death. We didn't want to do that, so just brought them in for a few days until it passed. I acclimated them one at a time back out there again; if you could call it that as it was 68F to 0F. They were/are fine though.