Disinfectant Product Poll & Input

[Fire-Chicken]

Good day everyone from southwest Florida!

So, I’m just going to throw this out there...

I have had chickens in the past.
We are building a brand-new coop (our first one after a long, life-directed sabbatical).
We are looking for input on coop disinfectants and preventative maintenance products.
We currently have 10 chicks that are three weeks away from going into their permanent, outdoor home.

What is your input on the following products:

• Vircon-S
• Synergize Cleaner / Disinfectant
• Bleach and water solution
• (Any other options/products/suggestions)

I think this will drum up some good conversation.

In advance, thanks a bunch to all of your input, thoughts, and ideas.

Regards,
Fire-Chicken

 

[Folly's place]

Here my old frame coop would probably melt, and definitely mold, if we used any liquid cleaners out there in it. So, we shovel out the litter, and scrape off the 'big hunks' two or three times each year, might add permethrin dust on the floor, and add new bedding. Also either use a broom, or better, the shop vac, to get the cobwebs.
The feeders will get dumped and refilled with fresh, the garbage cans dumped, and new empty feed bags lining the bottom used, and then feed bags placed back inside.
Waterers get rinsed every second or third day, and bleached and scrubbed out fairly often, most especially if there's any signs of mice.
We have yet to finish staining the interior of the old coop section; it's 'on the list' for this year.
The brooder, in the garage, is managed with bleach cleanouts after every batch of chicks, and their feeders and waterers are never at the coop, and also bleached.
We never bring in outside birds, except chicks from known sources, and don't practice the commercial 'all in, all out' flock management plan, so it works fine for us.
Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm a little more laid back in my approach than Mary. The only time I clean out cobwebs is when I'm going to have visitors. And that depends on who the visitors are, one friend really enjoys the spiders. She likes snakes too, I love that woman, but snakes in the coop do not work. I also strongly believe that we are all individuals and have our own unique situations, goals, set-ups, tolerances, and all that. What your coop/run looks like and how you manage them can influence this a lot.

I use a bleach/water solution to wash waterers. How often that is depends on the weather and how likely algae is to grow. I dump the waterers every day and refill them but that doesn't stop algae.

My brooder is in the coop. It has a wire bottom so poop falls through and it stays really dry. I don't do any sterilizing before I add new chicks. They are exposed to the adults from Day 1 anyway.

I use a bleach/water solution to sterilize my incubator after every use. To me that is an absolute requirement. I just set clean eggs anyway and I just don't have eggs going bad in the incubator.

I scrape my droppings boards off when they need it and add that pure poop to my compost pile. When the coop is crowded and the weather outside is wet that might be every week. When I'm down to my winter laying/breeding flock and the weather is really dry that may be once every 6 weeks. I can tell when I've gone too long because it starts to stink. Over the years I've learned to not let it go too long.

I generally clean the bedding out every three or four years, in the fall and put that on my garden so it is ready for spring planting. It's not that I have to but I want that stuff on the garden. The droppings boards really cut down on the amount of poop in there, I have weather so they spend practically all day every day outside, food and water is outside as well as in the coop so they don't have to come inside to eat or drink, I have a fair amount of room, and I keep the coop really dry. All that together means the poop in the coop isn't a problem.

I do not believe in keeping chickens in a sterile environment. I depend on their immune systems to keep them healthy as opposed to treating them with preventatives and other things. That means they are exposed to their environment right after they hatch. I believe keeping them dry is important, wet is dangerous. Give them a lot of room outside so poop doesn't accumulate helps.

Many people can't do this, especially in suburbia. They are going to have to manage their flocks differently than I do. But the only disinfectant I use is a bleach/water solution. The only preventative I give is to feed my chicks in the brooder some dirt from the main run so they can start strengthening their immune system immediately.

Good luck on finding your solution.

 

[Folly's place]

I don't have an incubator, and agree that it would need to be a clean as it's possible to make it.
Chicks hatched here under a broody hen are out there from day one; hatchery chicks that i have vaccinated against Marek's disease are in that garage brooder for a bit over two weeks, so they have the benefit of that vaccine. So the flock includes both vaccinated and unvaccinated birds, who would get sick if Marek's disease ever arrives here.
Mary

 

[aart]

Other than the incubator(after every hatch) and waterer(twice a year),
I don't use any liquids let alone chemicals in the coop.

What kind of bedding you use may depend on how you manage the manure.
This is about cleaning, but covers my big picture
-I use poop boards under roosts with thin(<1/2") layer of sand/PDZ mix, sifted daily(takes 5-10mins) into bucket going to friends compost.
-Scrape big or wet poops off roost and ramps as needed.
-Pine shavings on coop floor, add some occasionally, totally changed out once or twice a year, old shavings added to run.
- My runs have semi-deep litter(cold composting), never clean anything out, just add smaller dry materials on occasion, add larger wood chippings as needed.
Aged ramial wood chippings are best IMO.
-Nests are bedded with straw, add some occasionally, change out if needed(broken egg).
There is no odor, unless a fresh cecal has been dropped and when I open the bucket to add more poop.

That's how I keep it 'clean', have not found any reason to clean 'deeper' in 7 years.

 

[Fire-Chicken]

Thanks to all of you for the input. Great thoughts!