Too clean equals bad? fact or fiction?

[Lazy Farmer]

Clean nesting boxes are a definite yes.

We re-engineered ours last season.. retired milk crates. The milk crates come off the shelf and can be carried easily to the burn or compost pile and dumped out and refilled in seconds.

 

[BantyChooks]

We re-engineered ours last season.. retired milk crates. The milk crates come off the shelf and can be carried easily to the burn or compost pile and dumped out and refilled in seconds.

Me too. Mine are 5gal buckets now. I love them.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Nothing is ever too clean here, but clean enough. I have a healthy flock with lots of space and range. I think the smaller the area for your birds the more you need to clean.

Another factor is climate. We generally go months between cleanings in winter, but clean every few weeks in warmer weather. We have never done more than replace bedding and sweep out dust and cobwebs. I don't even disinfect my brooder anymore as I find it's not necessary.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Ya, I guess my final answer is that I'm not a clean and disinfect everything type person.

But I think there is a point of diminishing return on both over or under cleaning. And individual circumstances like weather and coop/pasture size/stocking density are a huge variable.

Anything that smells like ammonia should have been cleaned a while back.

So just like so many other things in chicken keeping and life... there may not be ONE correct answer, but many.

I appreciate the chance to look at my choices and review if they need improvement. And to here others' experiences on the subject.

 

[Welshies]

Flock management is what's important here.
Access to the outside world from early on often builds up immunity.
Now obviously a coop should not be caked with poop, but some people do keep their coop too clean. Then when a flock goes outside they immediately get a disease.
It's like a house, I guess. Yes, it should be clean- but it should still be "lived in".

 

[Patinas]

I'm not clean freak when it comes to the coop but I do keep up with not letting poop get out of hand. I use poop trays and clean them daily which goes a long way to keeping the coop fresh much longer.

I do think chickens enjoy a clean environment over a neglected one. I don't think they like walking on their poop anymore than I do which is another reason I work at keeping the poop from piling up. I don't like going into the coop and run and stepping all over poop! I want tending the flock to be enjoyable, not a stinky, poopy daily experience.

 

[chickens really]

My Flock is great..I totally clean out the bedding twice a year and then just shovel out under the Roost when need and use the older shavings under the Roost and replace with fresh everywhere else.
I till the Run once a year...Then just rake out the poop the rest of the year and all loose feathers as needed..

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I do think chickens enjoy a clean environment over a neglected one. I don't think they like walking on their poop anymore than I do

Totally agree.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

My chicken house is about 180 sq ft 7 birds right now 5 chicks coming in a few weeks. I have deep litter over dirt LOTS of ventilation, one wall completely open, two large gable vents and 3 opening windows. I started last April with this flock and have yet to clean it out. I toss a flake of hay in every so often, I clean out my hanging waterers by dumping the dirty water and a quick finger scrub every day. It has never smelled bad, just an earthy barn sorta smell. If I thought I had to clean poop daily or weekly I would not have chickens! All that being said, with chicken math setting in and more chicks on the way I will see how it goes, I am planning on cleaning out 3/4 of the deep litter this fall, it will be 18 months old at that point and I will cover the garden area with it over the fall and winter then every fall thereafter. Well thats the plan anyway.

Gary

 

[Blooie]

Um, define "clean".

What works well for me and my flock might be totally unacceptable to one person and overkill to another. I have a granddaughter with Spina Bifida and autism, who is here much of the time, and she gets around by crawling on the floor. So you bet there are different shoes for outside working in the coop than in the house. Hand washing is an automatic here. She loved to go out and visit the chickens in her wheelchair while they were free-ranging. She was just 3 years old when we started taking her out there and 4 when we started putting the egg basket on her lap and letting her bring in the eggs. With her first three wheelchairs (the first when she was 9 months old) there were no chrome outer wheels to push to move the chair, which meant that she moved around by pushing directly on the tires. YUCK! But soap and water are our friends! She picked up no more from the chicken area than she did when we took her shopping or something. The bodily fluids that people deposit in parking lots and on sidewalks is enough to make you never leave home again! What was on the ground was on her tires, therefore on her hands. We attached a container of sanitizing wipes to the back of her chair and used them - frequently.

Part of the "cleaning the coop" controversy might stem from folks not understanding the difference between "deep bedding" and true "deep litter". I started that process out all wrong, and what I thought was litter was actually just bedding that was getting deeper and deeper - and grosser and grosser at times. @Beekissed taught me the difference. Deep litter is working all the time, preventing odors, ammonia buildup, breaking down and building good compost. Once I figured that out, I'd clean out after about 18 months or so, and I never cleaned all the way down to the bare ground. I always left a layer of "starter" to kick start the new litter. Nests were cleaned out frequently, and roosts were also taken out, cleaned with soapy water, dried in the sun, and then hit with a good layer of Neem Oil before they went back into the coop. Feeders and waterers were kept clean too. My brooder was a wire pen we stuck out in the run right on the same ground the Bigs occupied. Chicks were always sound and healthy.

So I guess ultimately "clean" is what each of us thinks it is. There is no way, being responsible for Kendra as her full time day care provider from birth until she started school full time last August, and every Friday now, that I would ever put her in any danger. Sometimes we didn't even know when she was scheduled for another surgery. She has a MACE stoma on her stomach that leads directly into her colon for her nightly enemas, and a Mitroffanoff Stoma in her belly button directly into her bladder to allow for her 5X daily catheterizations. When we got our first chicks, she had a surgery scheduled for the next week and we were concerned so we called her surgeon. His nurse told us to keep her away from the chicks. The surgeon himself called us back later and told us to let that baby see and touch those chicks! He said she was going to hear "no, you can't do that" all of her life and part of our job was to give her as many "yeses" as we possibly could. He said there's nothing she can get on her that won't come off with soap and water.

So I guess my definition of "clean" is, would I let Kendra go out there?