Giving your Chicken Coop a Good Cleaning!

Giving Your Chicken Coop a Good Cleaning

When you’ve been around chickens for as long as we have, you learn some tricks to make regular coop cleaning a lot easier. For example, lining the floor with 4-inches of pine shavings rather than newspaper can cut down on cleaning time and condensation. To help you give your coop a deeper clean, we’ve put together this quick how-to.

New to Chickens?

You’ll find a host of Coastal articles on caring, feeding, and protecting your chickens at coastalcountry.com. That includes Common Chicken Mistakes You Can Avoid, Choosing Your Chicken Coop (or building it yourself), Caring for Your Chickens when You’re Away, and Everything You Need for Happy, Healthy Chickens.

Step-by-Step Process

To get your coop clean, you’ll need a shovel, vinegar, water, a hose, broom, bucket, scrubbing brush, and plenty of elbow grease (or plenty of helpers). You’ll also want to start early to give the coop time to dry.

Remove the chickens. They’ll have to stay out for a full day.

Shovel everything out. That includes manure, shavings, and dirt. Plus, remove all the feathers and cobwebs. The more you can take out, the easier it will be to scrub things down.

Hose it down and shovel again. Spray the walls, roosts, nesting boxes, and floors. You want to remove the dust and dirt. Plus, you’ll be loosening any manure that was stuck. Grab your shovel and scoop out any standing water and loose bits of yuck.

Allow it to dry completely.

Do a final sweep and mix your cleaner. There are those who feel that a mixture of bleach and water once a year works well at disinfecting a coop. But for a bi-annual cleaning, an equal parts vinegar and water solution works just as well. And it isn’t as toxic for your flock.

Start scrubbing. Get into every corner and clean every square inch of flooring.

Rinse everything thoroughly. Then give it time to dry.

Clean the waterers and feeders. Scrub everything with dish soap and water. Rinse well and allow them to air dry.

Give them fresh bedding. Once everything is dry, add new bedding and allow your chickens back into their cozy home.  

Flock to Coastal for Your Chicken Supplies

Come on in to your northwest owned and operated Coastal where you’ll find everything you need for your chickens, including feed, bedding, coops and more. Have a question about chickens? Our experts are here to help.