cleaning coop

[suki]

After reading various stories of running for the shower after unwittingly being subjected to a mite infestation I an becoming OCD about the cleanliness of my chicken shed.

I would rather prevent than deal with an infestation, any recommendations for effective cleaning products and disinfectants? I am especially interested in any home made solutions.

 

[Mahonri]

I don't know if I'd call it homemade but I use dish detergent to mop once a week and once a month after the mopping I go over it again with dilute clorox to kill more germs. etc...

 

[suki]

Thank you would i need to use an insect repellent too?
I have used jayes fluid in other pet environments, unsure how effective this would be with red mite though.

 

[Mr_Jeff]

Fresh air and sunlight are the biggest enemies of microbes. It is my opinion that too much cleaning can be detrimental to the health of birds in the same way that the obsessive use of antimicrobial products in the home is creating resistant strains of bacteria. Chickens are chickens. They live outside and groom themselves and generally do a pretty good job of keeping themselves clean. That outdoor environment(including the coop) is full of beneficial microbes as well as the nasty ones. Sanitizing the chickens environment could ultimately do more harm than good. As far as parasites are concerned, it seems that the use of diatomaceous earth and a broader standard of cleanliness can keep them from being a problem.

 

[bathsheba8542]

Hi - I'm new and my chicks are just 5 weeks old. They are currently in and out of their brooder, in their coop with shavings for bedding on top of rubber mats, on top of a stone floor. I will have roosting branches over rubber mats, and nesting boxes on the opposite side, also over rubber mats. As they are bigger and are going outside into their pen and around our farm, what do I need to keep on the floor in terms of depth of shavings? I was thinking that I'd try to keep the area under the roosting branches with only a scattering of shavings to clean out every day, and maybe a little more in the center of the coop? An inch or two?

Thoughts?

 

[patandchickens]

Mites are not a problem to humans -- they may crawl on you for a few hrs after being in a mite-y coop, but they cannot *live* on you, nor infest the house in any way. (They need birds in order to complete their life cycle).

Close attention to the birds will allow you to detect the beginnings of a mite/lice problem and treat it immediately (with DE, sevin, rotenone dust, whatever you prefer). Minimizing cracks and crevices in the coop will make it easy to knock out any mite/lice problem that may develop.

That's probably a whole big lot better idea than spamming the coop with insecticides out of paranoia

I honestly cannot see any good reason for using disinfectants in a coop unless you have some known disease, and then what's best to use depends on whatcha got goin'.

Prevention is better than cure; and prevention is basically a matter of good animal husbandry, not chemicals.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[Mr_Jeff]

Quote:
However you arrange the bedding material in the coop, the birds will undo it.

 

[bathsheba8542]

I love that answer...they've already 'undone' every ounce of 'tidy' I've tried to add!

Good news is they've already figured out that bugs are food, so they are already earning their keep even though they are (to an OCD-clean freak) unbelievably messy.