Chickenpatty84
In the Brooder
Afternoon y'all.
New to the forum and I'm going to start out with a pretty important question, from my perspective anyway. My wife and I bought a house and inherited a chicken coop on the property. It's about a 8x8, maybe a 10x10 fenced in area with a raised hen house, nesting boxes, roosting area - all that stuff. The issue is this: it's in pretty bad shape. When we dropped the door in the back that butted up against the nesting boxes, there was at least an inch and a half of thick, dried chicken pooped that was apparently matted up against the door. To say it had been there for a while is an understatement. It was mixed in with all the nesting material. It looked like the inside of the coop hadn't been cleaned in quite some time. The hay and nesting material was all matted and stuck to the box, feathers all over the place, poop on the floor, roosting area - pretty unsightly overall.
That wasn't the worst part. When we removed the actual nesting boxes and roosting area (they weren't attached, just placed in there), at least 10 - 12 full grown roaches (1.5 to 2 inches long) scattered all over the place, heading right into the rest of the hay and other roosting material. That isn't counting the baby ones that I lost count of. I hate roaches. It just seems like a pretty hazardous environment to keep chickens in.
My wife and father said that they were going to use a power washer, some bleach and apple cider vinegar to clean it out and make it useable again. In my opinion, I would just like to take what reusable material I can from it, door hinges, flanges, and one set of nesting boxes, and just burn the rest. Just light it up. The whole fenced in area is trampled down, dug up, feathers and poop all over the place. Scorched earth is what I was thinking. It seems like an area ripe for disease.
I asked a colleague of mine what she would do with it. She grew up on a farm with a couple head of cattle and other animals, so I figured she'd have some insight as well - she said to light it up. To be more specific, she said that all it would take is one smooth motion with a match, right into the hay.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with this thing. I'm all about reducing, reusing, and recycling, but I don't want there to be some diseases or insects in the wood that didn't get addressed, then have them come back and infect my flock. Then I'd have to pay more money to fix them and the coop, and be out of eggs, and/or deal with dying chickens, and the potential of getting sick ourselves.
Advice? The floor is open.
Thanks for the help.
New to the forum and I'm going to start out with a pretty important question, from my perspective anyway. My wife and I bought a house and inherited a chicken coop on the property. It's about a 8x8, maybe a 10x10 fenced in area with a raised hen house, nesting boxes, roosting area - all that stuff. The issue is this: it's in pretty bad shape. When we dropped the door in the back that butted up against the nesting boxes, there was at least an inch and a half of thick, dried chicken pooped that was apparently matted up against the door. To say it had been there for a while is an understatement. It was mixed in with all the nesting material. It looked like the inside of the coop hadn't been cleaned in quite some time. The hay and nesting material was all matted and stuck to the box, feathers all over the place, poop on the floor, roosting area - pretty unsightly overall.
That wasn't the worst part. When we removed the actual nesting boxes and roosting area (they weren't attached, just placed in there), at least 10 - 12 full grown roaches (1.5 to 2 inches long) scattered all over the place, heading right into the rest of the hay and other roosting material. That isn't counting the baby ones that I lost count of. I hate roaches. It just seems like a pretty hazardous environment to keep chickens in.
My wife and father said that they were going to use a power washer, some bleach and apple cider vinegar to clean it out and make it useable again. In my opinion, I would just like to take what reusable material I can from it, door hinges, flanges, and one set of nesting boxes, and just burn the rest. Just light it up. The whole fenced in area is trampled down, dug up, feathers and poop all over the place. Scorched earth is what I was thinking. It seems like an area ripe for disease.
I asked a colleague of mine what she would do with it. She grew up on a farm with a couple head of cattle and other animals, so I figured she'd have some insight as well - she said to light it up. To be more specific, she said that all it would take is one smooth motion with a match, right into the hay.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with this thing. I'm all about reducing, reusing, and recycling, but I don't want there to be some diseases or insects in the wood that didn't get addressed, then have them come back and infect my flock. Then I'd have to pay more money to fix them and the coop, and be out of eggs, and/or deal with dying chickens, and the potential of getting sick ourselves.
Advice? The floor is open.
Thanks for the help.
