Anyone else doing a MAJOR cleaning of their coop?

[highcountrychickens]

I would LOVE to, but it would require the services of a Jackhammer and an outdoor water superheater. I do change the shavings in the henhouse though - have to make something tolerable!

To hear things like "my garden will love the compost" makes me long for spring... which doesnt arrive until April here. Even then we can't plant outdoor gardens until May or sometimes June. *sigh* Sure is pretty tho.

Happy Cleaning everybody - I'll be posting here agin in late March!

 

[meathook]

No respect I tell ya. I cleaned mine out yesterday and girls don't even wipe their muddy feet before coming inside.

I use what I call the fairly deep litter method. There was no real smell in there but things seemed to be getting a little damp, it had been a little over three months since they moved in, the weather was nice and I had to make some modifications to the poop board so figured why not. This was just a fast clean out of the litter come spring I will do a more thorough job probably power wash the whole thing.

A few of the things I have learned so far.

The linoleum I put on the floor makes cleaning much easier.

I put chicken wire over the poop board so they wouldn't walk through it. This turned out to be a bad idea. When the birds were small and their poop was small it worked OK but as they got bigger and their poop got bigger it didn't all fall through and froze to the chicken wire which is nearly impossible to get out until it thaws. I took down the chicken wire if they want to walk in poop so be it they do it anyway.

 

[crazy_4_chickens]

I cleaned mine yesterday...

it was fairly bad smelling but i don't mind. I put all me poo and shavings in a big pile then spread it with all the cow manure of our 600 head herd!!!

not a backyard farm!!! lol