What to do when your chicks outgrow the initial brooding trough...

[Vacman]

So my chicks, 3 barred rock, 3 leghorns and 1 each, silver and gold laced wyandotte bantams, outgrew the covered trough with the heat lamp I had them in until they got bigger and the weather got warmer. All off that happened, but they weren't big enough to join the adult hens, so I had to come up with a temporary solution. This was it. I made this temporary shelter, fenced off half the orchard with 4' tall chicken wire and made this out of pallets, held together with stainless steel zip ties. Put a couple of perches in it and got the heaviest tarp I could find which was about 6 mils and silver on the outside to reflect the sun. It's worked perfectly so far and they are near the time when I will introduce them to the grown hens. I figure a couple more weeks. Twice, I've had to go in with the hens and get a few of the stray chicks out of that side and reunite them with their siblings. The adult hens just ignored them.

 

[MissE]

I have a batch of 7 week and 10 week chicks in tractors right now waiting until they can join the bigger birds. I have the entire chicken area protected by electric poultry fencing.

Next week I will fence off part of the area to let the young ones roam but still have protection from the bigger birds.

The big ones are used to them now, but i really don't want any problems. Some of my 10 week old cockerels are the size of my hens, however the pullets are pretty small.

 

[DobieLover]

Twice, I've had to go in with the hens and get a few of the stray chicks out of that side and reunite them with their siblings. The adult hens just ignored them.

Open up a small opening in the fence large enough for the chicks to get through but not the hens. Make two or three of these. Allow those chicks to start mingling with the hens now and it's going to make your integration job much easier when you move them into the coop.

 

[3KillerBs]

I've got a mess right now because the Chicken Palace isn't finished (and no work on it today because of the extreme humidity after the tropical system that passed through yesterday). So,

I have the adults in their coop, which is too small to add more chickens.
I have the 10-week-olds living in a dog crate -- but have to move them out into the "playpen" so that I can use it to break my broody.
I have the almost 5-week-olds just off heat in their outdoor brooder and have to move the entire thing away from the place where I could reach it with an extension cord to the inside of the electric wire.

The Chicken Palace has an in-coop brooding area in the design -- which I will hopefully have built before I get the next chick order in September.

I have thought of making a pallet structure like yours as a temporary shelter for integration or to separate out the for-sale birds from the keeper flock.

 

[Vacman]

If you have the pallets, it's really easy and super quick using those stainless steel zip ties (get a SS zip tie gun with adjustable tension control) and they are a lot stronger than the nylon ones. When disassembling, all I have to do is take a pair of tin snips with me. The one "must" however, IMHO, is a good quality tarp to reflect the heat. I left mine open from the front (southern exposure) and while there's a pallet closing in the rear, the tarp doesn't cover that so there's air circulating continuously. I do have my "coop orchard" totally enclosed with an electric net fence.