Young chicks sleeping arrangements

Hello all.

My broody Ethel is rearing 3 Cream Legbar girl babies. They are 3 weeks old now and doing well. They are getting really tame and fly up onto my lap (like little rubber band powered aeroplanes) for tit bits.

They have accommodation in the main run, a converted rabbit hutch. It's quite big enough for the babies but a bit cramped for Ethel - she is a tall bird and likes to stretch her wings. For the last couple of nights she has been putting them to bed in the main chicken house, where the other 3 girls sleep, and I've had to move them to their own quarters. They all settle down quite happily (and the babies' bedtime is a couple of hours before the other girls) but it's clear that Ethel would much prefer to sleep in the house that she used with her friends before she had the babies.

I can't see that the family can sleep in there. The little ones have started to perch, but they still prefer to be under Mum, and the perches are way too big for their tiny feet. If they sat on the floor (a) they'd get cold and (b) the big girls would poo on them.

Plus our top chuck Jean bullies them and I wouldn't like them to be shut in a confined space with her.

Please tell me what you think - am I right to keep them separate for now?

And once Ethel leaves them to themselves (I believe at about 5 weeks) should I go on putting them to bed in their own hutch? I don't think they will be big enough to go in with the other girls for a while after that, but I'm not sure.

Oh, and by the way, at what stage should I start giving them little perches to sleep on?? 

All advice gratefully appreciated!

The babies haven't been hurt yet. Bessie and Enid, the other 2 birds, ignore them completely, but No 1 chuck Jean gives them a good peck if she can reach them, and sometimes she runs after them. But they are much quicker than her and learned very quickly that "big ginger chicken = run away as fast as poss".

Ethel their mum used to be bottom chuck, but now she is definitely no 2. She pecks and mounts the other girls and I have even seen her have a go at Jean to protect the babies. I'm just not sure about them all in one coop 

Ethel has been lovely about us handling the babies. To begin with she wouldn't let me feed them, she always took the food from me to give it to them (bless). Obviously I couldn't make the right noise - though I quickly found out that if I held the food between thumb and forefinger and made a "chicken shape" with my hand, they would take it from me much more readily. But now she just watches, with approval it seems, and lets them eat from my hand (they don't need the chicken shape any more), sit on my lap and perch on my finger  .

I love it that when I come into the run they all whir over towards me !

Mine have taken over the house with broody mum and some others that were incubator hatched and kicked the other 2 hens out into the broody coop!