oh wow what a suprise! i wish my parents would do things like that for me ha ha!!!
yep as Brad said if the chicks are under 4 weeks old I'd keep em under a heat lamp. You'll pretty much know what age they are by their feathers.
If you visually see what i call "blood feathers" most call them quill feathers (because they look sort of like porciupine quills) then that lil guys probably only 1 week old. If the chick has feathers most of it's body feathers but they're still mostly in the quills then the chicks probably only around 2 weeks old, at three weeks the chicks blood (quill) feathers are almost completely gone with only remaining feathers, and at 4 they're pretty much a fully feathered bird except for the head feathers which take longer to come in. I put my 4 week old chicks outdoors but it was in the dead of summer.
I'm not sure what arkansas temps are like, so you'll have to assess that for yourself what you'd like to do with them. I'd say anything below 50 is too cold for 4 week old chicks to deal with without heat lamps. If you get snow in arkansas (i seriously dont know haha) then unless those birds were alerady outside before your dad bought em, i'd keep em indoors until the seasons get warmer.
here is a chick at 8 days old to give you an idea of what a chick that still very much so needs under heat lamps looks like:
If their chicks I personally think it's simpiler to stuff marbles, clean rocks or even paper towels in a shallow small bowl (even a lid or cap) and the chicks will drink out of that without drowning or getting wet. You gotta stuff it full though with rocks, marbles or paper towels. I actually use craft stuffed animal/pillow stuffing (clean stuff ofcourse). works great.
congrats on newbies!
By the way thank you Mrs AK for pointing out my post hehe!
