Disinfecting after disease.

[Miriah132]

what is everyone’s perfected method of disinfecting after a diseas outbreak? Specifically with an unknown resoiratory disease. We have no birds left from the flock and want to start a new flock. We are just going to bring in a few birds to a temporary coop and see how they do.

 

[Cyprus]

Try Oxine AH (activated) or Virkon S.
Best options out there.

 

[Notaneggspurt]

Try Oxine AH (activated) or Virkon S.
Best options out there.

And as much sunlight as you can get into the coop.

 

[Miriah132]

Try Oxine AH (activated) or Virkon S.
Best options out there.

Should the soil they were around be treated as well?

 

[Cyprus]

Should the soil they were around be treated as well?

Yes

 

[Cragg Klefor]

Did you ever get a necropsy done? I supposed not if it's an unknown repiratory illness.
Without knowing what killed your flock, the disinfecting would need to be extensive an thorough. All areas your flock have been would need attention. This includes any free ranging they did, their coop, their run, everything. Some bacterial will live for months on or in soil.

If you wanted to post all symptoms you can think of that your flock displayed we can try help on here to guess at what they had, but it would only be guessing.

For starters, I would certainly place the new temporary coop you mentioned in a completely different area than the previous one.

 

[dawg53]

First: You must thoroughly clean coops inside and out, including feeders/waterers, nest boxes and roosts, vents. Soap detergent mixed with a little bleach will work, rinse well.
Second: Disinfect everything I mentioned above with Oxine or Vircon including spraying chicken wire around the pen.
Third: Sanitizing the soil. Since you dont know what respiratory disease you were dealing with, you'll have to sanitize the soil in the pen. If they free ranged, it's best to wait and repopulate the following year.

To sanitize the soil in the pen, there are two ways to do this:
1. You can use steam to disinfect the soil.
2. Cover the whole pen with black plastic, two layers if the plastic is thin "MIL." Make sure
it stays in place. If it's winter time, leave the plastic in place for 8 weeks, during the
summer 4-6 weeks.
The plastic holds the suns heat onto the soil, sterilizing the soil. The sun is more direct
in summer, therefore the shorter time to sterilize the soil.

 

[Miriah132]

Thank you all for the advice! We will be abandoning the old coop and setting up a new one in a completely different area though our last chickens were free ranged and we will disinfect the soil in the new area.