Scrambling to house 16 young chicks

[fiddlebanshee]

I had ordered 16 (welsummers and marans) chicks thinking that it would be a while before it would be my turn to get them. Well, I got a call this morning that they are hatched and ready for me to pick up. My other brood is still in the brooder because I am still building their coop. I hope to have that finished by Independence day.

I have an ecoglow that I can plug in but it has been so warm that I think they wouldn't use it anyway. I already have feeder/waterer for them so that's not going to be a problem.

I'm excited and worried at the same time.

So the question is how big a tub do I need for 16 1 week olds?

 

[wowmanacat]

I tried a large tub one time and it lasted less than a week with day old. I use a old 70 style play pen but a newer one would work too. Large box, fenced off corner of a building anything can work in a pinch.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

That was my fear with a tub. How many did you have in the tub?

I suppose I can cordon off a corner of the coop where the older birds are as long as I make sure they can't get to the little ones.

I just remembered i also have a large petcarrier. Perhaps I can use that one at least for the first days.

 

[tikigrl78]

I went to Walmart and bought a 6' round plastic kiddy pool and used some rocks to hold up the sides,they don't stay up to well without water and saw horses to hold the heat lamp above it ,and the best part the pool was only $8. All done, fold it up for the next time.

 

[tikigrl78]

Forgot to mention I ordered 16 and 19 showed up and were all very happy for the next 5 weeks

 

[gilmoujr]

Use the pet carrier in the coop then use chicken wire to split your coop into two sections. This gives the added benefit of also getting them seeing each other until they can all be together once the babies are grown. The only problem with this is if the babies have a disease or problems then it can spread and have a negative effect on the rest of your flock. The BEST scenario is have a small pen or brooder box that is separate and then put them in the coop with a portion cordoned off for the babies after a quarantine period.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

@ tikigrl78
That's an interesting idea. I may pursue that and can probably rig something up with 2x4s that I have laying around to prop up the sides.

@gilmoujr
I can do this, but the chicks will eventually move to their own brooder once it is vacated by the current 7 week olds when the big 10x14 coop is ready. This would be only a temporary situation for at most 2 weeks.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Ok, just for the record, in case anyone was wondering, here' swhat I did.

I went to my local food coop and asked if they had one of those big melon boxes for me. Turned out that they had one that was damaged and they had cut a portion off. It's about 4 ft across but you can shape it in an octagon or a rectangle. So I brought it home, stuffed it in the coop with the big chickens, put some ducktape over some openings and rigged up chickenwire so that the big girls cannot jump into the box. I have access from the side (the coop has a double door and one of the door openings is right where the side of the box is.

Then I put a bag of wood shavings in the box (I could probably have one half a bag, but oh well, it's nicely cushioned now), put food and water, and an ecoglow and there they are. Content as little fluffballs can be. They're not sleeping under the ecoglow, but it's warm here and they didn't pile up on each other so I think they're fine, temperature wise. I just checked up on them.

The big chickens are a bit upset with all of this remodeling of their house. But they'll get used to it, and it is only temporary, until my other 7 week olds can go into the big coop that I am building and the little peeps can go in their brooder.