What tools do you need to clean a chicken coop? How much time do you need to clean a chicken coop? Cleaning a chicken coop is not as hard as you might think.
First, we need to gather the tools to be prepared to clean the chicken coop. Once you lock the chickens out, they will surely want to come back in. If we let them back in before it’s clean then we will have to re-clean it. So, let’s look at what tools we might need.
Once you know what tools you need to clean the coop, it doesn’t take that long. First, gather all your tools.
- Shovels
- Hoe
- Pitchfork
- Push broom
- shop vac
- Power Washer
- Dishwashing gloves
- rags
- Scrub brush you only use for chicken coop
- small bowel or bucket reserved just for chicken coop
- White distilled vinegar
- buckets or wheel barrel
What to do To Thoroughly Clean the Coop
Now that you’ve gathered your supplies, let’s talk about what to do first. Close the chicken door to the coop so chickens can’t come in. Next, we try to engage them in something else in their run, some kitchen scraps or weeds. Inevitably, one of our chickens always has to have an egg. So, then you start to feel bad, but they need to stay out until everything is nice and dry.
First take out all of the hay, droppings, and anything else that may be lurking inside. We can take out our roosts, so I got out as much of the hay and droppings as I could before my hubby came back from his dad’s house with the power washer. Then we took out the roosts. I scraped off as much of the dropping from the one vent you can see in the picture. We need to do something different with that area, I think.
Get Out the Big Guns
The last little bit of cleaning goes faster if you have electric cleaners to help. A shop vac and a power washer can help to get out the smallest of grime. Use the shop vac to get things that a push broom or won’t reach. Then spray all of the inside, nesting boxes, and roosts with the power washer. Next, I use a rag, and a scrub brush (only used specifically for the chicken coop), and some white distilled vinegar to scrub everything down. In this picture, there was still a few areas I had to scrape with a hoe. Let dry. Next, we go to the indoor run and change out the hay.
We take all of our hay and droppings and put them in our compost. This year we are adding to our no-till garden. Which is sometimes referred to as Lasagne or sheet composting. So we laid down some cardboard. Then, we watered it down and added the lovely barn litter. And the neighbors had some mulched leaves from their yard. It’s a nice start to a new gardening bed for the spring.
After the Storm
After the cleaning process is done, and everything is all dry. In the spring we add diatomaceous earth in the corners of their nesting boxes and on the indoor run. This helps prevent mites. Add the new straw. Sometimes the chickens want to help. Or they want to tear up what you just tied back together, more likely.
Do you have some special tools you like to use to clean your coop? Do have any suggestions that would help others? We welcome any comments or questions.
We get our straw from a local farm. You can get Diatomaceous earth on Amazon here. We got our shop vac here.
To find out how to save money by fermenting chicken feed go here.
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