Has anyone used this? I know Oxine is the cleaner of choice but it's out of stock nearly everywhere and not long term shelf stable (from what I've read) and I really don't need that much. The Vikron S comes in tablet form, sold on Amazon and likely my local feed store, so seems better for the small chicken user. It is approved for chickens but I did have a question. Do I need to rinse this after application? The information I have found says to rinse anything coming into contact with food/water... which is fine. But my coop doesn't do well with a full wash down... I've cleaned and removed as much debris from my coop as I can without using water... We did have some sort of unknown disease towards the end... we culled her and the remaining 4 hens are in the freezer waiting to be boiled all day. So, we're starting over from scratch. The coop will have sat empty at least a month by the time we get new hens. Hoping to sanitize this week, so empty for a couple of weeks after sanitization. The runs are all sand, we live on a giant pile of beach sand 3 hours from the beach! So, those are fine at least... Thanks for the input!
Not sure about tablet form, but I have used it while working at a raptor rehab center/avian clinic, in powder form. The powder form will last as long as you need it to last, but once it's reconstituted, it'll only be stable for 7 days. Virkon is safe for the birds, suds up real nice, and does a very good job at cleaning. Since we took in wild birds, we didn't know what sorts of diseases they had (we often found out later down the line...pox is a big problem at rehab centers), so keeping everything clean was important. You will have to use water if you are using Virkon. You don't NEED to scrub if plaques/debris will come off with a pressure hose...but you really should scrub since whatever's lurking in there is established as quite serious. What's your coop made of? The less porous the material, the better it is at not trapping nasty bugs. If you can expose everything to sunlight and keep it dry for a bit, that won't hurt either.
When I want a thorough sanitization, I use VirkonS (I believe it's 4 tabs to a gallon of water, however, don't quote me on that). I picked up a small (5 gallon) weed sprayer that I use strictly for sanitizing. I like using the sprayer because I can control the stream. Spray everything down real well (even the ground) and let dry.
