How far do YOU go to get the chicken coop clean.

[woodmort]

Quote:
How is your coop set up? I must be missing something because I have to clean my coops out at least monthly. I have to clean the poop from the roosts and the walls in addition to shoveling up the hay bedding in my open air coops. My chickens free range all day, every day but there is still a lot of poop in there from them going in to roost at night.

So, when you say leave some bacteria, do you mean leave some poop in there for them?

My coop has two rooms--I used to use just one but, chicken math being what it is, I had to expand. I have two roosting poles in each room, staggered so the birds won't poop on each other. The manure just falls to the wooden floor. Since the floor is covered with pine shavings to a depth of 6 inches or so it pretty much mixes in and dries out. I just let it accumulate until I'm ready to take it out--it will crust over some during the winter when the birds are on the roost longer. For those areas not under the roosts the birds pretty much keep everything stirred up so what is there is loose. When I remove it I use a scoop shovel and broom. BTW, if the coop begins to smell a bit, I just toss in another bale of pine shavings--that generally takes care of it.

As far as leaving bacteria, I just don't bleach or disinfect. After I've taken out all the manure/pine shavings I sweep anything loose into the shovel and am done. I figure there are enough microbes in the wood, on the roosting poles and around the nest to start new colonies.

 

[Just Wingin It]

Wow. I got great ideas! Thanks y'all.
Ive enjoyed my chickens for 4 months, and everyone here is teaching me a lot.

My coop has a linoleum floor.
I scoop all the pine shavings out using a large dustpan, then dry squeegee to pick up the little stuff, then sweep out the dust. It all goes under the coop where I rake it over once a week for compost. It seems to attract bugs, so the chickens rake it too.
As for the smell, well, the ducklings overpower any odors in the next pen. Whew!

 

[LittleBits]

This thread was interesting! We've had our chickens for about 2 1/2 months now and find that they have red mites. First time with chickens. Guess that means a good, disinfecting cleaning coming up...so...ya'll tell me what I should do for these mites, as far as cleaning goes, and if anyone could answer the following questions, I'd be most grateful.

1. If I clean/disinfect and spray/powder the coop for mites BEFORE I do the chickens that night (Gonna have to wake them up 'cause they are not "user-friendly" and I doubt I'll be able to catch them during the day to get the treatment on well enough...) won't the mites leave the chickens and get all over the coop again?

How do I handle this?

2. If I treat the chickens one night, and do the coop the next day - would that be better or will the mites get on the chickens again after we're done? I suppose since they're treated, they'll stay off, even if the mites are still in the coop?

3. Is there any product I can use that is easier than getting the treatment down to their skin and all over their bodies? If so, what is it?

4. Can we use the eggs after mite treatment? Or is there a with-holding time?

5. Can the chicken mites bite us and live on us? Do we need to treat ourselves after we're done? Can I bring them into the house, unaware of doing so? (ICK...)

Anything anyone has to suggest is VERY WELCOME...obviously, I've never done this before and my poor chickens (now that I know these buggers are there) are itching bad. I thought they were preening and cleaning their feathers, but I actually SAW something red (on me) that I figured was a red mite.

As far as the cleaning goes, in those 2 1/2 months, I've changed the bedding (pine shavings) once. Sift the poo-boards every morning and have just recently had to add a little more PDZ. I sprinkle some of it on the pine shavings, too. They don't poop in their very much and what they do I'm able to get out pretty good.

BUT THE COOP STINKS! So does the run - it's now muddy, poopy and generally YUK...

I put some sand in there to cut back on the mud (I was slipping it was so bad 'cause we've had so much rain) but it's all mixed in w/ the mud now and back to being slippery when it rains a lot.

13 hens, 1 roo in coop/run. 4 x 6 floor space in coop, (2) 6' roosts w/ poo-boards. I rake the pine shavings daily to air out - they seem pretty dry. They're in the run most of the time - it's about 50' circumference circle run.

Ahhh...cleaning...I thought one house was enough to clean!! Now there's two - human and chicken!!!

 

[Nicole01]

I clean poop 2x's daily if in the run and coop(winter months). Free range, just once in the morning with the coop. I disinfect poop boards with oxine at least once every 1-2 weeks.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Very interesting how conceptions of cleanliness of chicken housing vary between people. I don't think it's a male/female thing necessarily.

I do a sort of deep litter method on the floor of the coop -- keep adding pine shavings and clean everything out once a year but there is not a whole lot of droppings on the floor (see below). During the once a year cleaning I also scrub the walls which are tileboard, but I'm not aiming for perfect cleanliness, just to get most of it off.

In the coop, I have a 30" poopshelf under the roosts below two staggered roosts, with a layer of about 2 inches of pdz on it. I scoop the poop below their roosts every day, or every other day, depending on when I get home in the evening (I leave for work when they are still sleeping). The pdz dries out the poo and scooping a 7ft long poopboard takes about 2 minutes using a cat litter scoop and is part of my routine of checking up on them in the evening, interacting with them (there's always one hen who comes to inspect my work and points out poos that i have overlooked. She's the poo-inspector,

). I top off the pdz every once in a while when it seems to get low. This happens more in the winter when the pdz freezes to the poo before it dries up. Maybe a 20 lbs bag every three to four months. When the roosts get really dirty I just exchange the 2x4 out. I'm not much into scrubbing and scraping roosts.

I also do a deep litter method in the run close to the coop (where they seem to congregate most) but with straw. I cleaned out a layer of perferctly composted straw in the spring that had accumulated over the winter. I add about a bale of straw every month. I have a 20x30 ft run.

for critter control I sprinkle DE on the roosts, the poopshelfs, the floor of the coop and the run. I had some outbreak of flies in the run a couple of weeks ago that DE and pdz took care of within a few days. I have never had any external or internal parasites on my chickens.

I never ever have any smells in the coop, or in the run. if the run got really wet from rain I will sprinkle some extra DE and pdz on the wet straw. If it's really bad I will shovel some of the wet straw out, but that doesn't really happen very often.

 

[darkmatter]

Here is the pictures taken this year of my annual Coop cleaning for the Garden. As you can see, I have a sub-ground level composting pit arrangement which after I clean it out, I add lawnmower clippings, pine straw & needles etc. on a weekly (more or less) basis. I got my ideas for a Coop and management from reading about traditional "organic" methods long before the internet was invented. The deep litter composting process had been used by European farmers for hundreds of years.

So----instead of being obsessed with cleanliness, think about using a natural process-----instead of fighting nature, enlist nature.

 

[Naturegirl44]

wow some great idea`s here thanks. We rescued our chickens a month ago from a grumpy not very nice man down the road and his coop stank 25 feet away. It was horrible. We converted a 4x8 playhouse into a coop with 6 nesting boxes and 2 sets of roost bars in it. Our run is 8x8 and our chickens are free range all day every day. The coop is raised about a foot off the ground and they like resting under there. We have 10 hens and 2 roosters.

As for cleaning, not knowing anything about chickens other than i told my man if our coop ever smells like the one they were raised in, i am not a good chicken mama!! lol So usually every other day i go in and change the straw we have on the floor and add some fresh stuff to the nesting boxes if need be. They seen to jump on top of the nesting boxes and poop so i scrape it clean, then i sweep and lay fresh straw about and scatter DE about. I am about to go in and pull everything out for a scrubbing cuz its starting to smell and some flies are hanging about.

Thanks for all the idea`s and Joe and i may be expanding in the future and we will definitely use some of the idea`s i read here.

We have no idea if the poor chickens we rescued have mites or anything else since they won`t let us pick them up yet lol but we are using DE regularly in the coop and we throw a bunch in the run where they dust bath.

If there are any suggestions for new chicken owners, please post.

 

[Naturegirl44]

oh and i have seen pdz mentioned a few times......what is this?

 

[fiddlebanshee]

"Sweet PDZ" is a product used in horse stalls to combat odors. It's a completely natural mineral that neutralizes the ammonia, it also dries out the droppings. You can get it at TSC at the horse supply section.

I've had it for over a year and will not go back to anything else underneath the roost, ever. I mix in a little bit of DE once in a while to combat any other parasites that may like it there, and have not had any problems with critters like lice or mites.

Here's a link to the company's website:
http://www.sweetpdz.com/

 

[AVintageLife]

This thread was interesting! We've had our chickens for about 2 1/2 months now and find that they have red mites. First time with chickens. Guess that means a good, disinfecting cleaning coming up...so...ya'll tell me what I should do for these mites, as far as cleaning goes, and if anyone could answer the following questions, I'd be most grateful.

1. If I clean/disinfect and spray/powder the coop for mites BEFORE I do the chickens that night (Gonna have to wake them up 'cause they are not "user-friendly" and I doubt I'll be able to catch them during the day to get the treatment on well enough...) won't the mites leave the chickens and get all over the coop again?

How do I handle this?

2. If I treat the chickens one night, and do the coop the next day - would that be better or will the mites get on the chickens again after we're done? I suppose since they're treated, they'll stay off, even if the mites are still in the coop?

3. Is there any product I can use that is easier than getting the treatment down to their skin and all over their bodies? If so, what is it?

4. Can we use the eggs after mite treatment? Or is there a with-holding time?

5. Can the chicken mites bite us and live on us? Do we need to treat ourselves after we're done? Can I bring them into the house, unaware of doing so? (ICK...)

Anything anyone has to suggest is VERY WELCOME...obviously, I've never done this before and my poor chickens (now that I know these buggers are there) are itching bad. I thought they were preening and cleaning their feathers, but I actually SAW something red (on me) that I figured was a red mite.

As far as the cleaning goes, in those 2 1/2 months, I've changed the bedding (pine shavings) once. Sift the poo-boards every morning and have just recently had to add a little more PDZ. I sprinkle some of it on the pine shavings, too. They don't poop in their very much and what they do I'm able to get out pretty good.

BUT THE COOP STINKS! So does the run - it's now muddy, poopy and generally YUK...

I put some sand in there to cut back on the mud (I was slipping it was so bad 'cause we've had so much rain) but it's all mixed in w/ the mud now and back to being slippery when it rains a lot.

13 hens, 1 roo in coop/run. 4 x 6 floor space in coop, (2) 6' roosts w/ poo-boards. I rake the pine shavings daily to air out - they seem pretty dry. They're in the run most of the time - it's about 50' circumference circle run.

Ahhh...cleaning...I thought one house was enough to clean!! Now there's two - human and chicken!!!

I had an infestation to deal with last fall but it was lice, not mites so I'm not sure if the same rules apply but I think it's best to deal with the coop and the birds at the same time. I let the flock out to free range, locked the door between the coop and the run and dealt with the coop first. Cleaned everything out, shop vac'd, sprayed all the crevaces with white vinegar/water mixture, sprinkled poultry dust (the only time I've ever used it) and DE on the on the floor and in the nest boxes and then added in new bedding. Then I took each bird, one by one, and dusted them (out in the yard) in a tub filled with wood ash, DE and a small sprinkle of poultry dust - under their wings, around their vent, under their feathers. Be careful around their head. As each bird was dusted, I put them back into the coop. After the coop and the flock was attended to, I dealt with the run. I pulled out the leaves, sprinkled some DE and put in some bales of hay (which I was going to do anyway for the winter). It's best to dispose of the bedding far away from the coop instead of composting it, just my opinion. I don't usually use DE in the run because I want bugs in there for the flock but figured better safe than sorry. Then a week or so later, I dusted the birds again to get any eggs that might be on them. Overall, it's a big undertaking that's for sure. Good luck!