Cleaning Up After Disaster Strikes

[Creteloc]

I'm still very much upset about my 3 dead pullets. I can't figure out how they all died at the same time. Yes, they came to me in very bad shape, but it bothers me that they died at the same time.

I digress. I need to clean up. I can't keep looking at their little pen. Not knowing what happened exactly leaves a lot of concern. I still have 2 healthy chickens out in my back yard. These ones were kept quarantined in my garage.

To err on the side of caution, this is what I was thinking. Please correct me if I'm wrong :

• Toss out all pine shavings
• Toss out water bucket with nipples (plastic)
• Toss out food container (plastic)
• Toss out flooring (was just cardboard)
• Bleach out entire coop (this one I'm not sure about, but I want to re-use it when new chicks come out in January)
• Toss out the bag of mealworms I kept by their run
• Toss out extra pine shavings I kept in a plastic bag by their run

Am I missing anything?

Mental note for next time : Don't keep so many supplies by the quarantined birds. I don't know what I was thinking.

For help in decontamination, this is the house I was using for quarantine.

 

[besorto]

I would personally just scrub the food container and water bucket with antibacterial soap. But I guess you could throw them away? Better safe than sorry

 

[microchick]

A lot of people use Oxine for disinfectant as it is also an anti-viral cleanser as well as an anti-bacterial. Bleach fumes can be irritating to the mucous membranes and skin of humans as well as animals so if you do spray everything down with bleach make sure you have plenty of ventilation and covering on your clothes and body.

 

[Crooked Chicken]

You do not need to toss all of the plastic containers. I would clean them all well with dish soap/bleach/water and use a toothbrush on the nipple waterer. As for your other ideas they do sound good. I agree with microchick about ventilation and skin protection (rubber gloves) when using the bleach in the coop. I would probably use a mix 25% bleach & 75% water for that.

Edited to add: Be sure to let the coop dry completely and air out before the chickens move in

 

[PirateGirl]

you could bleach all the feed/water containers, anything plastic, then either let air dry or rinse with as hot as you can stand water (will dissipate the bleach quickly if you need to re-use the containers quickly)

If you aren't getting birds for quite some time, once the birds and bedding and feed are gone, there's no host left to help keep potentially bad bacteria and/or parasites alive, so hopefully by the time you get birds again everything will have died off after your deep clean. I'm not sure of the lifecycle of all bad things and how long you would need to wait to be safe, but there's no soil involved, so you are already starting with a relatively sterile environment.

Good luck! You are on the right track. Sorry for your loss, you clearly care about your birds and are doing your best.