I am a first time chicken mom with babies coming this Thursday. My brooder area was full of old poop and got cleaned out yesterday. (We just bought the farm last fall) My question is..do I need to disinfect the brooder area and if so what with and how? Any pointers you could give me would be greatly appreciated!!
Is your brooder made of wood? If so I wouldn't get it wet, I think I'd powder it with DE (diatomaceous earth) and vacuum or brush it out thoroughly. Do you know if there were problems with the chicks that were there before? That might influence what you do. I'm sure others with experience can add substantially to this. And you have a spare heat bulb, right? Mine is made of plexiglass so I'll be able to disinfect with a liquid if needed (hoping not).
My brooder area has wood sides and a concrete floor and is part of the overall chicken house. I read somewhere that you take 1 part bleach to 10 parts water to clean and then let dry. The people we bought the farm from were not farmers so I would say the chicken house has been empty for at least 7 years. (The time they owned it) I have to go get some heat lights but we already had feeders and waterers that came with the farm.
We had an old dog house made of a packing crate that we refurbished. I took a 10% bleach solution and sprayed it out. We are keeping it in our mud room so it dryed out well before the chicks came. Plus I was testing out the brooder lights so it got really warm in there. It seemed to dry out well.
Get you some Oxine and mix it in a spray bottle. It is 500 times better than bleach. I spray out my bator with it too