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When Do Chickens Get Their Feathers?

Are you in the trenches of researching how to take care of chickens? Knowing the answer to when do chickens get their feathers is an important aspect of raising backyard chickens.

Congratulations! You are the proud parent (chicken owner) of some backyard chickens. (Or perhaps you’re still in the researching stage, which is great too.)

Raising chickens can be an exciting, educational, and rewarding adventure for the whole family.

However, when those baby chicks are trapped in the brooder, and therefore stinking up your area and running up the electric bill, you might be anxiously wondering when these silly chicks will get their feathers so you can take away their heat lamp and move them outside.

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When Do Chickens Get Their Feathers?

So when will your chickens get their feathers? Depending on the specific breed(s) you are raising, this will vary by a week or so in either direction. Different breeds develop feathers at different times.

For example, silkies will be much older than Orpingtons before they develop new feathers. But in our experience, baby chicks tend to get all of their feathers between 3 and 4 weeks of age.

a row of chicks covered in down wondering when do chickens get their feathers

Related – When Are Buff Orpingtons Fully Feathered?

Baby Chicks And Their Feathers

It’s hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago you brought home that adorable little fluff-ball. You thought it was so cute, but didn’t realize what your responsibilities entailed.

When chicks first hatch, they are covered in fluffy down. This down, while being exceedingly soft and cute, is no good for protection from wind, rain, or any other cold weather.

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Our favorite birds to raise are Buff Orpingtons. By the time these pullets and roosters are 4 weeks old, they are almost always completely feathered. However, in the past we have raised Silver Laced Wynadotts, Red Sex Links, and California Blues, and all of these chicks have been feathered enough to move outside (barring any wet or cold weather) by their 3rd week. 

By this time, our chicks were almost fully feathered. This includes wing feathers, saddle feathers, and tail feathers.

These permanent, new feathers will continue to develop over time until the baby chickens have complete protection and insulation against cold. Depending on the chicken breeds, new wing feathers will also aid in short flying adventures. 

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After the first few months, you will no longer be able to tell the age of a chicken based solely on their feathers since adult feathers come in and stay the same for the rest of the bird’s life (with the exception of molting season – the adult molt time tends to happen once a year after the bird hits about 18 months of average age).

4 week old chicks covered in new feathers in an outdoor chicken coop
almost fully feathered 4 week old chicks

Pictured above, you see our 4 week old Buff Orpingtons. That heat lamp needs to be removed, we just haven’t taken the time to do so yet. This is in an outdoor chicken coop in the fall of Oklahoma so the temperatures were not too cold to be outside.

Once the adult feathers come in, you can control how healthy and shiny feathers are by giving your teenage chickens supplemental treats such as black oil sunflower seeds or other omegas. This is also the case for adult egg laying chickens who will use up more nutrients creating those beautiful eggs.

How Long Do Baby Chicks Need an External Heat Source?

Once your chicks are fully feathered, the easy part of keeping chickens, specifically backyard chickens can begin. Older chicks are mature enough to enjoy some backyard grazing and perhaps even some smaller food scraps.

At this age, they really only need a wind and rain shelter and protection from predators. Other than that, they’re good to go!

This means you can unplug that heat lamp and put it away until the next time you are raising baby chicks. You want to unplug the heat lamp as soon as possible because heat lamps are dangerous additions to outdoor chicken coops as they can be a fire hazard.

Additionally, should the power go out unexpectedly in the dead of winter, a sudden drop in temperature due to a no longer working heat lamp, could shock your chickens and result in freezing to death. 

Most chicken experts agree that once the chicks are fully feathered, all external heat sources should be removed for everybody’s safety. When the chickens are fully feathered, they are ready to hunker down in the chicken coop and stay warm no matter what’s going on outside.  Many breeds will even be able to continue to produce eggs during these temps.

(If your male and female chickens have particularly large combs and wattles, you might consider protecting against frostbite on particularly cold nights using a little bit of vaseline, but that’s another topic for another day.)

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Read Also – Best Chicken Breeds For Cold And Hot Weather

Why Do Newly Hatched Chicks Need An External Heat Source

So why do newly hatched chicks need an external heat source in the first place?  For the same reason humans can’t come out of their mother’s wombs and immediately take care of themselves.

They need time to grow and develop before they are self-sufficient. Their little metabolisms are just not developed enough to create or maintain their own body heat or body temperature. Down is nice but it just isn’t enough. 

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This is why, for the first couple of weeks after hatching, you must provide them with an artificial heat source. Nature does not include a heat lamp in the little box with “chicks” written on it, so please do not plan to leave your babies out in nature until their downy fluff turns into feathery insulation.

Remember, if your chicks were hatched by a broody hen, that hen would keep the chicks under her nice, fluffy feathers for the first several days in order to keep them warm and safe. When you raise chicks in a brooder, you must create this protection artificially.

4 week old chicks covered in new feathers in an outdoor chicken coop
4 week old Buff Orpington chicks almost fully feathered

What About Baby Ducks?

If you’re raising baby ducks, you might be wondering about when the ducklings will get their feathers and how to care for the ducklings in the meantime.

For the most part, ducklings are the same as chicks. They get their feathers a few weeks later than chicks but nothing significant. And they require the same methods of staying warm as baby chicks do.

Besides the fact the ducklings are messy and stinky, raising them is pretty much the same as raising chicks. Just remember not to feed your ducklings a medicated commercial feed.

Related – Cracked Corn For Chickens

External Heat Sources for Baby Chicks (and Ducklings)

When you first bring home your baby chicks, they definitely need an external heat source. Most backyard chicken families opt for a hanging heat lamp of some kind. 

These heat lamps can be clamped just above the brooder so chicks can huddle underneath it for warmth. Just make sure to keep the lamp away from anything that might cause a fire. 

If you don’t want to use a heat lamp for whatever reason, have no fear. There are plenty of other ways to keep chicks warm besides a broody hen. Other external heat source ideas include:

  • Hot water bottles
  • Heated pads that go under the bedding or stuck to the wall
  • Thick and warm bedding
  • Start older (older chicks and older chickens have an easier time maintaining their body heat so they are easier to keep warm)
  • Move the brooder close to your home’s heater or fireplace (careful of getting too close and causing a fire)
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The good news is, most of these heat sources, including the infra-red light bulbs and heat lamp, can be found on Amazon or at your local farm and country store.

Day-old chicks and chicks that are in their first week will huddle under this lamp for the greater part of the day. As they age, they will gradually begin moving away from the lamp until eventually they’ve abandoned it altogether.

As for where you keep your chicken brooder, that is dependent on you. In the past, we’ve put our in the garage, in the kitchen, and in the office. Keep in mind that chicks are LOUD and STINKY. So count your lucky stars that these little guys get their feathers so quickly because by that 3rd week, you’ll be dying to kick those smelly birds outside.

Now the next time you’re wondering when do chickens get their feathers, or your curious friends and neighbors are asking you about chickens’ feathers, you know what to tell them! Consider this bit of advice one of the basics of starting a homestead. Now do with it what you will.

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Charlene has been dabbling in and learning about the homesteading lifestyle for almost 20 years. She recently started a real-world homestead with her extended family and is excited to share 20+ years of knowledge and experience with the world!

While she certainly doesn't know everything about homesteading and is learning more every day, she is excited to learn and grow along with YOU!

Charlene blogs about about homesteading at https://secretlifeofhomesteaders.com/.

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