Chick and older chicken run setup HELP

[mo9885]

I'm going on vacation for over a week and will have someone coming once a day to help care for my chickens. My question is regarding my setup for 6 5 week old chicks. Right now I have a large secure run with attached coop for my 3 month old chickens. I have put my 6 younger ones inside the run with a wire two layer pen with a wire roof and they sleep in a pet carrier I manually lock them in each night. The pen keeps them safe from the older chickens but when I'm away I won't be able to close them securely in the carrier. The main run is 1/4 hardware cloth and very secure, I have not had any issues with predators, but the pen inside is not very protective from anything other than the older chickens. My worry is if something DOES break into the main run, the rest would be easy to breakthrough to get to the babies.
Should I get this hutch to be inside the run instead of the pen?
Should I use a large dog great thats more secure?
Are they fine as is?

 

[NatJ]

I'm going on vacation for over a week and will have someone coming once a day to help care for my chickens....The main run is 1/4 hardware cloth and very secure, I have not had any issues with predators, but the pen inside is not very protective from anything other than the older chickens. My worry is if something DOES break into the main run, the rest would be easy to breakthrough to get to the babies.

Will the older chicks be shut in a secure coop at night?
Or do you trust that run to keep them safe?

If the run is enough to keep the older chicks safe, then it is also enough to keep the younger chicks safe.

Typically, one good layer of predator protection is enough-- so if your run is secure, then any pen inside is also safe enough.

Should I get this hutch to be inside the run instead of the pen?

Any predator that does get inside the run, will probably get into that hutch too. (Either by knocking it over, or burrowing under it, or ripping through one of the wood sides. The wood on hutches like that is usually thin and not very sturdy.)

I would probably stick with what you have, rather than buying anything else.