Why Chickens?

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NH, United States
Last year, I bought a chicken coop that was made by someone that I love dearly and decided to raise some chickens. Well... we'll see how this quest develops as Spring fades into Summer and the chicks arrive in early June! Check out my YouTube channel www.youtube.com/fbideas for the most recent videos I've posted!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

May 20th - How to Clean and Disinfect a Chicken Coop

Since my coop was a "used coop", I have to make sure it's cleaned thoroughly before I put down the new pine shavings and move the Reds into it.  I haven't been able to find too much on YouTube or Google on this feat, so here's MY saga!

Since it was so filthy, I decided to to take some one's advise and use a power washer.  NOT a good idea!  You never know how small an 8x8 shed is until you get inside and turn on a power washer when there's loose chicken poop still there!  I think I'm going to be picking it out of my hair for the next week!

I had my muck boots on, which was good since after I dampened everything I was sloshing around in 1-2 inches of this watery mess!  The roosts were layered with dried poop, so I got a scraper and scrapped them down to bare wood.  I washed the walls and ceilings down with Clorox and water from a pail (not adding drastically to the depth of "Lake Judi Poopy".  The spider webs etc. came off the chicken wire when I was power washing, so at least that was easy.

The wet-dry vac sucked up all of the lake and then I went to work on the linoleum floor with the bleach and brush.  Sucked up all the water again and it was clean!


I then proceeded to sprinkle Perma-Guard Diatomaceous Earth onto the floor and into the nesting boxes in preparation for the pine shavings on Monday.

I still need to "paint" the roosts with a mixture of DE and water, but I'll do that later.  I followed the instructions from www.dirtworks.net which is where I purchased the product.  Here's the link to the instructions, which will open a Word document.

Once I got over the power washer mishap, it actually went pretty smoothly!  Thank God I was working with OLD chicken poop this time so there was no smell.

The girls also rewarded me again with eggs number 3 and 4! It's nice to know that at least for now they're laying every other day.  The size of their eggs are a little smaller than the large ones I buy at Sam's Club.  A few more chickens, and I won't have to be buying them at Sam's any longer :)

1 comment:

  1. Wow! That coop looks good enough to move into. I need to go clean our coop out... I'm doing this instead of getting myself outside. Having our own chicken's eggs is a treat!

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