We noticed that our 1st chick we hatched ( hatched Christmas eve) Feathered-out pretty fast... seemed faster than our "Store-bought" babies... Now the 3 Silkie-mix chicks we have are doing it! The oldest (6 days old) allready has wing feathers and the start of a tail! Yesterday she/he only had little feather-tips peeking out on the wings! Our 2 White ones (4 and 5 days old) are starting to get little feathers on the wing tips... so seem to be on the same schedule... Is this "normal" or pretty quick? Could it be due to what I feed them? I feed them oats, sunflower seeds and crumbles run thru a food grinder for the 1st couple weeks.
I have found that the faster you take away heat the faster they feather out. I start out at 90 degrees for 3 days and go down 5 degrees every 4 days. I have 5 week olds that are all feathered out in my gargage with no heat and it gets pretty cold here. They have deep bedding and a cat litter can on it's side that all 4 sleep in together at night but they wander all around during the day. it appears they are comfortable at 42 degrees tonight. it is 28 outside.
These guys/gals are in the bedroom under a light-- still at 90f.... not that important, just wondering about it... they are Silkie mixed with--well-- either Partridge Rock, OE Bantam, or Golden Sebright.... The Little Black one is getting Copper colored stripes on her wings! The 2 Little white ones have a copper tint to them "here and there"... but aren't feathering as fast as the black one....
Oooo! Could you show pics? I have golden sebrights and silkies and I've never seen those guys crossed together before!
we got our day olds thursday and they have wing feathers allready. This is my first batch and i didn't know what to expect. A couple of them have wing feathers almost 2 inches long and a second row comming on fast. Is that unusual? They have plenty of heat and move to and from it all the time so i think they are staying self regulated.
