I've seen a broody hen get her chicks out of a ten feet high hay loft. She said jump and they did. Then they bounced up and ran to her. My broody hens regularly hatch in nests 3 to 4 feet off of the coop floor. Falling or jumping that far does not hurt them.
What does your nest look like. Only one time have a problem with chicks falling out of a nest. I kept reading on here about chicks falling but I didn't understand it until I saw it for myself. I once let a hen hatch in a cat litter bucket set at a 45 degree angle. The top of that bucket was 7-1/2" x 11-1/2". When the first chicks hatch they sometimes like to climb up on top of Mama. It's fun up there. But that hen was sitting so close to the side of that bucket that when the chick fell off it fell all the way to the floor, four feet. The chick was not hurt by that fall but four different times I had to put a chick back in the nest with Mama. I think most if those times it was the same chick.
I've never had another chick fall out of any other nest but those were bigger nests. So what does your nest look like?
You read conflicting info because we all do it different ways. It is not that there is only one way to do it where every other way is wrong, but that there ae many ways that can work really well. There might be something about your circumstances that says one way is better but to issue a blanket statement that only one way is the right way for everyone else isn't quite correct.
Some people isolate their broody hens to incubate, some isolate to hatch. Some isolate the hen and chicks after hatch for different lengths of time. Some do all kinds of different combinations of these. I'm not going to say that any of them are wrong because any of them can work. They just have different risks and benefits.
I personally let my hens hatch with the flock. I collect all the eggs I want her to hatch and mark them so I can tell which belong. The eggs are all started at the same time to avoid a staggered hatch. Every day after the others have laid I check under her to remove any that don't belong.
I let the hen decide when to bring the chicks off of the nest. I have food and water where the chicks can get to them on the coop floor but pretty much leave everything else up to the broody hen. With my coop and set-up the hen typically keeps the chicks in the coop for a couple of days, then takes them outside. After that they spend practically all day every day outside, only coming back into the coop at night to sleep on the floor. Mine do not try to return to the nest at night, the nests are too high, so they sleep on the floor.
My coop is on the ground, no ramps. If yours is elevated the chicks may have problems getting back up there at night. This might be a reason to do things differently. Regardless, I think it is a good idea to check on the chicks and broody at bedtime to make sure everything is OK no matter where they are, isolated or not, until you are sure they can handle it. If a chick is trapped away from the broody it will be calling to her, it won't be hard to find. After a couple of nights I quit worrying about it but there have been a few times I needed to help out.
Good luck!
