Depends upon where you live, your coop and run construction, AND the health history of your flock. I live on an acre of sand in the desert. Organisms, good and bad, don't last long in a dry environment. I use deep litter and do NOT clean the pens, all of which have sand floors built on the original sand on my acre. I've shoveled a few out once in ten years WHEN my neighbor's irrigation water spilled into my acre and flooded two pens. My grow-out pen is 16 feet x 16 feet but only half of the pen has a corrugated metal roofing. The other half of the roof is wire and the rain hits the pen's floors and makes a damp spot. But we only get 9 inches of rain on average, most during the summer "monsoons," and it has only averaged 3 inches per year the past two or three seasons.
All of my sand-floored pens get a yearly raking to remove manure clumps and feathers. I do not sift the sand; I don't have to. My sand is deep and the dried droppings are a true deep litter system. Any droppings that hit the floor dry up immediately. All of my waterers are on the outside of the pens. The clumps under the roosts are raked around the pen weekly, or added to my compost pile IF I need some more nitrogen. My flock hasn't had any health issues that would ensure my pens need a more thorough cleaning. I do clean the brooder pens out after the chicks hit the floor of the brooder pen. That is usually a good scraping of the dried droppings off of the hardware cloth floor--nothing more. The brooders have wire sides even though they are INSIDE the brooder coop. I do put up shade cloth on the wire on the outside of the brooders to keep drafts off the chicks. Next year's chicks will simply be added to those four brooders when the chicks arrive. No disinfection, no fuss, no worries. The chicks get their immune system challenged as soon as they hit the brooder or brooder pen floors. I have had very few, if any, losses past four weeks of age, which is when I transfer them to the coop floor.
I do disinfect my water containers on a weekly basis or when they need it. I use enclosed PVC feeders for the adult birds; growing chicks get their feed in covered feeders AFTER they've learned HOW to eat from open dishes. My feeders get a weekly disinfection also--usually with bleach in a large container then rinsed well and dried in the sun for an hour or two. Same for the waterers.
That's MY situation, and I don't know what yours is. But I can guess that you are NOT in a dry region. You probably have dampness to contend with and rain. THAT would change my recommendation to you. You probably need to clean regularly under your roosts so you don't have a build-up of ammonia. If you have had health issues that might be contagious, then you MUST disinfect and clean your brooders, roosts, and pens the best you can. One trick I learned as a racing pigeon fancier was to use a butane gas torch (like plumber's use) to torch the wood surfaces of my racing pigeon perches. Might work in your case for your roosts or coop walls. Keep the flame in contact with the wood JUST long enough to scorch any organisms (or mites) that could be on those surfaces. Don't burn your coop down, however. And I need to add a chuckle here, as I had a friend who DID burn his racing pigeon loft down. So caution is my advice. Or you can simply use a disinfectant designed for ALL surfaces, but more particularly for the type of surfaces you have in your coop.
Best advice I can give--if you have issues, clean. If you don't, clean as required by your weather and in keeping with your personal philosophy.
Shannon
