*Cramped Chicks!! Please, need a solution...* - Page 2

I brood in my garage in a kid plastic pool with some cardboard taped along the inside so when they get bigger they won't fly out.



This will be my 4th year using the same pool, and it's so easy to clean and bleach at the end of the season!

Wow!  What did you plan on doing with them?  They do grow - some of the ideas presented are very workable as is a large cardboard refrigerator or freezer box.  They need far more space than you are providing.

I had the same problem, so I put a tarp on the floor in the house and built a 6-foot square cube and stapled plastic chicken wire on it.  Lots of room and easy to clean.   You could probably staple or zip tie to anything that would hold up the sides.  I made the mistake of getting chicks before my coop was finished.

That is very cool!

I have a big watermelon box from Walmart..but soon that was even too small, so hubby brought me another box about 3'x4' which I added a tunnel to.  The watermelon box is the feed/water/play side, they sleep in the other side of the duplex   which has a roost.  I've been hatching chicks since September so many have cycled through the boxes.  I even added a 3rd box which they go into once they are a week or two old but not big enough to need the duplex yet.

This has worked well, but I seriously am considering not raising chicks in the winter ever again.  It's just such a hassle to keep them inside so dang long. 

Good luck!

I know that everyone is in a different place and a different climate, but I think you may be surprised by how well your chicks might do outside. My most recent batch (silkie mixes hatched 11/19) were raised outside under a broody until age four weeks, when they came to me. They were in a cardboard box inside for maybe a week before going outside. They have done just fine with temps in the 20s, and I have been assured by some of the old timers on here that they put chicks of that age outside in even lower temperatures. Rather than focusing on building an indoor solution, it may be more viable long-term to focus your energy on finishing their coop and moving them outside.

I think Sourland just meant to ask where you intended to move the chicks when they get bigger, to see if they might be able to move in to their future home a bit early. Comments are easily misinterpreted over the internet, since you don't have tone or facial expressions as a guide, but I think everyone is trying to be helpful. I have also heard many suggestions in other threads to use refrigerator boxes, if you can get your hands on one.