The chicks came home with us on August 25, 2017.  Our first foray into raising chickens in the fall.  It has been nice that keeping them warm has not been an issue.  I had forgotten how fast they grow.    Here they are on September 04, 2017 12 days old.  They are already losing the fluff and feathering out.

It didn’t take them long to decide they wanted to see the great big world outside the brooder tank. I got our old mobile coop ready and took them out there during the day when it was warm while I cleaned their brooder.  This was very different from the spring chickens we have raised.  I would need to place them in a kennel while I cleaned because it was too cold to take them outside.

They loved going into the mobile coop.  As soon as they were a bit bigger, I moved them there with a pet carrier filled with hay, so they could go in at night.  As they get bigger they will be able to climb into the roosting area.

Here they are September 28, 2017 . Thirty-six days old.  They have grown a lot and they are changing color.  The golden sex links are getting more color, kind of a reddish blond and cream.  The red sex links are turning a deeper red with some brown and black on their wings.  

This is the only one with a prominent comb at the moment.

I love the coloring on this one, a lovely golden color.

We can’t put the chicks with the older hens yet, they are too small and I have seen the chickens attack birds at the bird feeder.  We also read that this breed does not mix flocks well.  We will see.

Sad update:

Leave it to hungry predators to show you where the weak spots are in your coop.  The mobile coop doesn’t have much ground protection due to it being mobile.  The large coop has hardware cloth extending past the bottom, out two feet, covered in dirt and then large rocks.  This has kept the digging predators at bay so far.  Our little chicks were not so lucky.  We lost one of the red sex links last night some time.  The digging looked small, possibly a possum.  Our predators are possums, raccoons, and foxes.  I have spent the morning reinforcing the area around the base of the mobile coop.  I will be glad when the girls are big enough to go in with the older chickens.