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- #11
Organic Gal
Songster
Yes I really don't want to take 10 chicks back in the house each night for a week. I think I will close off a quarter of the run(maybe 5ft X 8Ft) and make sure they have a place to sleep for a week or so before putting them in the coop at night. My run is very secure5 hens, 10 chicks, 8' x 24' run, and a 2' x 6' enclosure. No idea how big your main coop is or what it looks like, inside or out.
How predator proof is your run? Do you plan to integrate again in the future when some of these need replacing? They don't live forever.
If I were doin this I'd fence off about 6' of the run on the end away from the main coop and have a human-sized gate between this section and the rest of the run. If the run is not predator proof I'd build a permanent predator proof shelter inside that 6' x 8' section so they have a place to sleep at night out there. If the run is predator proof that shelter doesn't have to be much, mainly a place to keep them out of the rain. You can put nests and roosts in it if you want to but you don't have to. I would roosts at least. If you need a nest just set a milk crate with bedding in there.
What I'm trying to set up is a good place to integrate the chicks with the look but don't touch while leaving them out there at night. If you want to commit to bringing ten chicks in every night and carrying them back out every morning you can, but you don't know how long this will last. It also makes a good place to isolate an injured hen or put a broody hen if you want to separate one to hatch or raise chicks away from the flock. If you build the shelter elevated with a wire bottom you have a broody buster. You can put a piece of plywood or such on the wire floor if you want a solid floor for the chicks. I find a separate place you can use like this to be really handy. To me it would be worth building, but it does cost money and take work. When you are not using it you can leave the gate open and they can use the entire run. Lock the shelter if you don't want them laying eggs in it. This would work great for Azygous's method of brooding in the run if you have electricity to it.
The way I'd integrate them would be to leave the chicks in that run section for a while, then let them mingle with the adults for a few weeks before you move them into the main coop. Let then sleep in that shelter at night until then.
Often integration goes so well you wonder what al the fuss was about. But occasionally chicks die. Sometimes you can just dump the chicks in the main coop at night or even during the day and it works out, especially if the coop is pretty big with a fair amount of clutter. It certainly can work. But it is certainly possible (and sometimes happens) that when they wake up one chicken decides to kill another. The tighter the space is the more likely this is to happen and the one being beat up cannot run away. When I move chicks into the main coop with the adults they have shown me that they can live with the adults during the day for a few weeks before I try. They don't have to eat at the same feeder at the same time or anything like that, just show that they are not out to kill each other.
For what it is worth my brooder is in the coop so the chicks grow up with the flock. I have over 3,000 square feet outside and the weather when I integrate that they can spend all day every day outside. At 5 weeks of age my chicks are roaming outside, separate from the adults by space but no fences. They avoid the adults. My broody hens raise their chicks with the flock. I've had a broody wean her chicks as young as three weeks of age and leave them alone to make their way with the flock. They do. You don't have 3,000 square feet so you have to be more careful. People do this all the time, often with no more room than you have and not being as cautious as I suggest. Often it works out, you usually don't read those stories on here. The stories you read are the ones where it doesn't work out.
Good luck.