HELP - my chicks will be too big for bathtub next week?!!!

[Pip4Chirp]

I had planned on keeping my four baby chicks (now 4 days old) in the bathtub until they were ready for the henhouse. Advice I've now gotten says they will be flying out of the bathtub in two weeks so I need Plan B. Someone suggested a dog pool (or kiddie wading pool) with chicken wire around it in the garage. No idea how I would hook up the warming light for this.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Anybody else have chicks in the bathtub? I didn't think it was an unusual thing.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

You can cobble together a larger area using cardboard boxes that you cut/tape to combine several into a container that is larger than the individual boxes....or check with your local stores to see if anyone has large boxes - appliances, produce, dog beds, etc all come in very large boxes, so don't limit your search to just one type of store.
If your concern on the tub, though, is only about flight, the simpler solution would be to just use a cover (piece of poultry netting, etc) over the top of the tub to keep them from getting out as any container you get would be best with a cover of some sort (built in or added by you). Four chicks in a tub does not seem likely to get too overcrowded, even for a standard/small tub. Also, you aren't alone, my garden tub is my brooder. My husband has built a lovely little topper of scrap wood and poultry netting - way more than I *needed* (I had intended just to cut and place the netting over the top), but that's okay because now I have it ready to go for all the years to come when I need to brood a new batch of chicks, lol -- should have seen his face when I said that.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Here is a great example of a box combo that someone recently built for their chicks who outgrew the container they were using
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/870339/what-do-i-do-with-these-chicks

 

[Pip4Chirp]

Thank you so much!! I don't need to panic after all.

I'll make a cover for the tub and work on finding boxes to connect together - from reading the posts, it seems that the more room they have as they grow, the happier they are. Looks like I can get poultry netting at Home Depot and it's much more versatile than chicken wire. I've never heard of the netting before. Thank goodness for this forum! And for you!!