Help! Housing two 6-week old chickens during quarantine period

[beatriceanddaisy]

Until this week we had four lovely 9-week old chickens. They've been outside for barely a month, and have a very secure coop+small run (5x10' total) and we let them roam in an enclosed but open-top area during the day, unsupervised. But now we only have three chickens, thanks to two raccoons and us not locking them in the coop early enough. We feel terrible and are only letting them into the enclosed area when supervised now, and we are getting a 10x13' fully enclosed, predator-proof run so this doesn't happen again.

We are getting two 6-week old chickens this week and have been advised that we should quarantine them for a full month. Keeping two small sets of chickens separate and with enough space to be happy is going to require some creative work on our part.

We don't have a second coop for the 6-week olds, and the new run won't be ready until after a few days after they arrive. So its not ideal but we are going to keep them in our basement in a large kiddie pool for the first week or two. Then, once the new run is up we'll move them there and will put some kind of coop inside it, and maybe we can put some kind of temporary divider so our older girls have access to half the new run, and the new girls live in the other half.

Questions:
1) Would love your thoughts on this plan.
2) What's an inexpensive coop idea for two chickens for 2-3 weeks? Until they're integrated into the flock, I want to give them a place to sleep that isn't simply the floor of the run. Or is it worth getting a new, inexpensive, proper coop that we only pull out for situations like this? We aren't handy so building a coop isn't on the table.
3) Is it still considered a quarantine if they're separated by a barrier but still near each other?

I'm probably overthinking all this but we were really shaken by our first chicken loss so soon after getting them, and want to do right by both our old and new girls. Thanks for your time!

 

[aart]

Sorry for your loss.

Is it still considered a quarantine if they're separated by a barrier but still near each other?

Nope.
It's pretty hard to do a real quarantine.
How far you go depends on your tolerance for more loss or dealing with pests and disease.
Here some tips:
BYC Medical Quarantine Article

 

[rosemarythyme]

If you can't do real quarantine I wouldn't worry about it - just hope wherever you're getting the chicks from is clean (if you were able to visit the facility) and honest about any diseases that might be in their flock.

Really would be best to wait until the new run is in place, and then have the younger birds raised inside that space, so they can begin the see-but-no-touch stage of integration. You don't have enough run space right now to really be able to section off part for use in raising the new chicks.

If that's not an option (i.e. the place won't have any more chicks after this) then yes you can buy a small coop to help with integration (and keep it for later use as an isolation cage) or other options would be a wire dog crate, a dog exercise pen just outside the run. Keep in mind that neither a dog crate or exercise pen would be raccoon safe, you'd have to take the chicks in at night.