Is a horse trough good for 20 chicks?

As their permanent home? As a place to hang out for awhile? You need to be more specific.

Sorry about that. but the horse trough is a brooder box that’s there home until they grow up and go in the chicken coop.

I grew up on a chicken farm. When we got chicks, they had to be kept warm under incubator lights in the coops. A horse trough doesn’t sound to me like protection enough for chicks, plus they might smother themselves. There are plenty of resources around for how to raise chickens; I suggest you look at some.

That is how they keep them at the Tractor Supply in my neighborhood. Tractor Supply

Of course they are just chicks. I imagine you will need more space later.

^^ Ours were kept differently but you can see the heat lamps that are above the troughs. (I was picturing more of a long thin horse trough from the OP.) You do need to keep them warm initially.

It is so tempting to be sexist and politically incorrect and ask what the twenty chicks will be wearing in the trough, and how they will fit without sitting on each others’ laps.

But because I am so woke, I won’t be that politically incorrect.

I kinda doubt it’s big enough, honestly. You want them fairly strong before they go out, and they grow fast.

I just put mine in the coop on day one, but block them in a smaller space with straw bales. When they’re big enough to jump the bales, they’re big enough to play outside.