Mac Dykeman has come up with a better way of shipping baby chicks, one that has put the 91原创 Fine Arts school student in the running for a $5,000 innovation prize later this month.

As a 4-H poultry club member whose family raises egg layers and specialty poultry breeds, she often orders just-hatched chicks to raise.

When the birds would arrive, some were cold, underweight or injured, Dykeman said.

鈥淚 noticed when I received shipments of day-old chicks they would arrive with high mortality or morbidity rates,鈥� Dykeman said.

Part of the problem was the square shape of the standard cardboard shipping boxes, she noticed, something that allowed chicks to get crushed into the corners.

Temperature control was another issue.

Putting a 鈥渉ot pocket鈥� warmer in the box for shipping in cold weather would mean possibly dangerous temperature spikes, and so would adding a cold pack in warmer weather.

What was needed was a box with no corners and a gentler way of managing temperatures, she decided.

鈥淚 created a round insert so the birds wouldn鈥檛 get crushed in the corners,鈥� Dykeman said.

She added a raised false floor to the box so a shipper could slide a heat pad or cold pack in to protect the birds without making direct contact with the baby birds and risking spikes in temperatures.

READ ALSO: B.C. couple goes on 鈥榗hicken wrangling mission鈥� to give Lucky a new home

Tests, including a 72-hour mock shipping that included transport by car, have proven her design ensures more chicks will survive.

鈥淭he birds would go to the edge of the box but they couldn鈥檛 get crushed,鈥� Dykeman said, during a presentation to the 91原创 Advance Times in the poultry barn behind her home.

She has now applied to patent her design, 鈥淪afer Chick-Ments鈥� and she is preparing to make a pitch to a panel of experts later this month who will decide if her idea merits a substantial cash prize.

On Tuesday, March 12, Dykeman will be one of five B.C. students invited to make presentations at Youth Innovation Day at the Vancouver convention centre.

Two prizes of $5,000 each are to be won at the 鈥淩eality Revolution Solution Pitches鈥� run by Innovate BC and The Science Fair Foundation.

Reality revolution is defined 鈥渢ech integration and the jobs of the future鈥� by the the , an opportunity for students to see what is new in the technology sector

Dykeman and the other students will each have two minutes to pitch their proposals to a panel of judges, with the winner to be announced at the completion of the event.