Spring cleaning your coops . . .

[LuvOurGirls]

Well its "Spring Break" and time to spring clean the coops (2). We've always (twice a yr for 2 years) put the girls out early in the morning and gutted their coops, removing nest boxes and roosts - scrubbed everything, inside/outside of coops, nest boxes & perches, with plain water and then let it all air/sun dry. When all is dry we sprinkle food grade DE on the ground & in the boxes before adding new pine shavings. All this is done in 1 day 'cuz the girls insist on going back in before dark!

Should we be using more than "plain" water . . . what do you do? All the girls (7) are healthy, clean, & productive and I've always contributed that to our weekly maintenance, but maybe I'm kidding myself.

What do you all do when you deep clean?

 

[scooter147]

I basically do what you do (actually cleaned this past Friday) but I do spray everthing with a bleach solution and then hose down with the hose. If all is happy, heathly and wise I dont' see any reason to do more.

 

[toletiquesbysam]

I remove the deep litter and put fresh hay in their nests, put down new wood chips and call it good

 

[LuvOurGirls]

Thanks! I think I will try the bleach solution. If nothing else it will put my mind at ease . . . one of my fears is that the girls will get mites. A number of years ago we brought home some silkies (of various ages) and they all had mites, stupid me didn't even look them over for that kind of thing . . . anyway the mites were so bad that it took a great deal of time and effort to get rid of them and I also believe those girls' health suffered because of it.

Rain today, weather to be better tomorrow, think we'll clean coops!