Where your chicks after brooder and before coop?

[Ajp23]

I’m only saying the garage because the coop area does not have electricity available.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How long of the day time mingling before allowing the babies to sleep in the big coop?

Sometimes the chicks make that move on their own. It's nice when that happens, but don't count on it.

I generally let mine roam with the flock for about a month before I move them in. I want them to prove that they can coexist before I lock them together in a coop. That usually works out to about 12 weeks old with mine. Nothing magic about that age or length of time. Some people are in more of a hurry but it is not a big burden on me to feed and water in different places.

When I move them in I wait until dark so they are easier to catch and toss them onto the floor of the main coop. Some people like to set them on the roosts but mine are not going to sleep on that roost with the adults when they put themselves to bed in there so i just toss them on the floor and let them work it out. It's amazing how well they can work things out for themselves when given the choice.

I lock them in there, making sure it is dark enough the adults can't hurt them until daylight. Then I am out there at daylight to make sure they are not being hurt. Within a day or two I'm convinced they can stay in there without getting hurt so I stop going down at daybreak.

When I move them I lock up the coop they were in so they can't go back there the next might. Often they put themselves to bed in the main coop but occasionally some try to sleep in the area of their old coop. Each night I put them in the main coop until they get the message. Mine are not beat up by the adults, if they were they might be reluctant to put themselves to bed in the main coop.

What I typically see when I go down in the morning is that the young ones are avoiding the older ones. Usually the chicks are up on the roosts while the adults are on the coop floor. Hopefully your roosts are high enough that the adults can't reach up there to peck them. Sometimes a chick may hide in a hiding spit to avoid the adults. It depends on what your coop looks like.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

It sounds like you have enough room to put a brooder in the coop. Dimensions are different (16x8) but my coop is not that much bigger. If you check out some of the coops in the large coops section, brooders under poop trays are a great use of space. And if you had an opening from brooder out to a separate run adjacent to you run or a run within your run, they'd have a lot of "look but don't touch" opportunity. I think integration goes really smoothly when bigs are allowed too free-range. They seem to care more about eating bugs than bossing littles around. My coop is 2/3's bigs, 1/3 brooder room which works good for that phase you mentioned whe they're teenagers. But I could also section off the area under the poop trays if I didn't want to dedicate that whole space to another room. And I have a little run within the big run....I start supervised opening the little run door with a few things that littles can hide under around 9weeks. It only takes a few days.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/categories/large-coops.20/

 

[Dreammaker]

if its warm enough, its real easy to fabricate a pen with 1/2" hardware cloth .. thats where they stay, portable size, tin on top, sheet draped over at night, add perches, top access is best ... food can be used to direct them and acclimate them to the coop, run, and back to the pen until theyre large enough to join the flock ...

Like the OP, I too have babies (3 weeks) that'd I'd like to get out of my house in the next couple of weeks. I was hoping to move them out into a large dog kennel that I'll cover in hardware cloth, some sort of roofing, and place next to the run. So, to clarify, they don't need an actual "coop" to go into at night as long as they're covered somehow? Just add a small roost, maybe? This approach would be ideal.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Like the OP, I too have babies (3 weeks) that'd I'd like to get out of my house in the next couple of weeks. I was hoping to move them out into a large dog kennel that I'll cover in hardware cloth, some sort of roofing, and place next to the run. So, to clarify, they don't need an actual "coop" to go into at night as long as they're covered somehow? Just add a small roost, maybe? This approach would be ideal.

They don't need an actual coop as long as they're safe from predators and have a way of sheltering from hot sun, rain and winds. Depending on how you have things set up, what you're proposing might be good enough, or you might need to bulk it up a bit more to make it protective enough for the chicks to use.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They don't need an actual coop as long as they're safe from predators and have a way of sheltering from hot sun, rain and winds. Depending on how you have things set up, what you're proposing might be good enough, or you might need to bulk it up a bit more to make it protective enough for the chicks to use.

I use a coop and two shelters to manage mine. The shelters are "safe from predators and have a way of sheltering from hot sun, rain and winds".