My girlfriend saw how frightened the chicks were this morning, and decided she would spend the day helping me make a way for them to get out to the pen and back to their portion of the coop! Rivers were too high for us to kayak...so, perfect day for a project.
what we thought would be relatively simple took about 5 hours.
It is kind of the chunnel idea Bulldogma suggested, but I didn't see that post til now. Basically made a tube of chicken wire (lord that stuff is a pain to work with!) that was 18 feet long, fastened on one end to the temporary pen, and including a wood ramp up to the deck that is off the coop trailer. Then, figured out a door barrier, with netting on the top and a wood bottom half of the door with a hole cut through it to the tunnel. So the exterior door to the trailer coop stays bungeed open all day, with the netting keeping the chicks in except for the tunnel, and the wild birds out.
Don't worry, the coop is inside a big run, which is pretty safe (electric fence which isn't always on, wire fence, fence on the ground to keep from digging under - so nothing should be able to get to the door except possibly a hawk or owl, but the netting should deter them. The temporary chick pen is under the hawk pavilion ( a 12x12 area covered wtih wire fencing for a roof, and chicken wire down the sides.
The chicks during this long afternoon were pretty much hiding in one corner of the coop, chirping hysterically.
I opened up their smaller brooder area on the floor to include the whole half of the trailer so they would have access to the doorway with the tunnel - and they were so freaked out, we figured they wouldn't come out. Left it out, went in, ate supper ----came out....and they had figured it out!
It was so cool to see them - they were coming up the ramp but getting a little confused and going back - needed a little herding to get all the way up and in, but I think they would have done it on their own.
Unfortunately, it will be 50 or colder tonight, I leave for work at 3:30 am so I won't leave the door open that many hours while it is so cold. Justine, I know you said your chicks were fine, but I have 3 that are still not feathered out, just wing feathers.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions - if I had read the idea about the wire/plastic pipe herding method I might have tried that instead!