Hen house cleaning regime ?

[Clover 77]

Hi there everyone, First post !
I am really excited as we will be getting some hens at the weekend ! We have been given a second hand wooden hen house and run which looks in great condition but i want to give it a thorough clean before we use it. Whats the best stuff to use and then how often do i clean it out and what with ?
I will add some pic's when they come.

Thanks

Clover x

[pdblake]

I made ours from scratch so It didn't need an initial clean but I'd be tempted to disinfect it then give it a good rinse out.

For regular cleaning I just line under the perches with newspaper and replace it when it starts to look too 'full' (or when they shred it) This can be anything from once a week to every other week. I find they don't make such a mess in the hen house except under the perches once they realise they have to sleep in there It's the run that gets a good coating

Once a month I'll give the house a wash out with a bit of disinfectant.

[Flummery]

Welcome to the hen-house - sorry, Grapevine! I use ***** Fluid and a good scrub, but then I rinse well and allow to dry in the sun/wind (which means in certain weather conditions I put it off a bit!) I poo-pick every day and top up the bedding - I've been using Easibed - a product meant for horses but lovely in the hen-house - smells nice and is clean to handle. I sprinkle red-mite powder after a scrub out, before re-applying bedding. Probably a deep clean like this happens every couple of weeks but if you take out the big dollops every day it doesn't get too gross. I poo pick in the run twice a day too. It's a fairly big walk-in effort and that doesn't get too bad either. We've had ours since early April and next month it will get a serious clean out and fresh wood-chips - it's got flagstones on the floor.
You'll never look back - they are the most amusing creatures you can imagine!

[NSB]

I clean and disinfect the house every saturday. Chickens digestive system works at night so you will have dollops in the house.

I use poultry sheild as a liquid cleaner/disinfectant this also kills redmite. I then sprinkle stalosan on the wet patches it is a powder form of disinfectant and it is also removes 99% of bacteria also removes the ammonia smell.

I use paper then woodshavings on the floor of the house. I use newspaper and shavings in the nest box also.

Im looking at getting anothr house if it is second hand then I would clean it a couple of times with ***** then go through my normal routine.

Hope this helps.

[Suechooks]

If its a second hand house make sure you use a red mite powder/spray (or both). You may not see them but could be lurking in the crevices in the wood.
When I poo pick each morning I also spray the underside of the perches and the ends of the perches with dilute Poultry Shield to try and minimise/prevent the red mite. I also spray the house with it when I clean.
Am planning to try Stalosan too.
I use ***** in the run.
Good luck and welcome!

[bluemoon]

Ours were new houses, so didn't need an initial clean, but we clean it out weekly, replacing the litter each time. We use Aubious, which, like Flum's Easybed, is meant for horses. It's lovely and absorbent and keeps the floor beautifully clean and dry. It also composts within 6 months so from that point of view is better than wood-shavings which take ages, though to be honest I wouldn't use it for our rabbit because it doesn't feel particularly soft for an animal who's going to sleep on it. (except horses, obviously). We tend to clean them in late afternoon when the girls have usually finished laying and aren't going to need the nest-box for an hour or two so we can close the pop-hole door to keep them outside. Our hens are on the allotment, but we keep a camp-stove and 2 kettles there so we can have lots of hot water, then use that and Ecover multipurpose to give the house a thorough scrubbing. I bought a pack of 4 tiny scrubbing brushes so that I could get into all the nooks and crannies, but I suppose a nail-brush would do the job just as well. It stays remarkably clean, fresh and lemony scented, but I think I'll also give it a quarterly clean with *****' Fluid just to be on the safe side. I think Mo suggested putting vinyl flooring down and I'm considering that.

[MaureenHall]

Hello and welcome and well done on deciding to be a chook-keeper You'll wonder how you ever managed without them

The others have all said what sort of cleaning routine to use, and I'd go along with that too. I did put vinyl flooring in the big shed-coop and it's so easy now just to give it a sweep out each week or two (depending on how much squashed poo there is) then a bucket of hot disinfectant-ed water to mop it out. I wipe over the perches too and puff a bit of louse powder into the nestboxes and red-mite powder round the edges and in any cracks and crevasses. Takes about 10 minutes

[julesapple]

First Major Clean Out....

.....I did our first major clean out on Sunday, although I poo-pick every morning.

We use Hemcore bedding, again for horses, but clean smelling and easy to compost too. Our perches have been widened with grey foam pipe lagging covered with astro turf so they got power washed, dried in the sun and puffed with louse powder. Our hen house has a removable droppings tray, but it was easy to use a small flat shovel to remove all the Hemcore from the tray, followed by dustpan & brush for the little bits.

The tray was hosed, then scrubbed (I used Dettox because that's what we had) it was rinsed well and dried in the sun very quickly. I then puffed all the corners & edges with louse powder.

The nest box on our coop sticks out of the back. It's just one large box, but we have made two seperate nesting boxes using the cardboard boxes that the 'Mamia' nappies are stacked in at Aldi. They are a perfect fit, and when they need changing we just put the whole box & nesting material in the compost bag. Then the nest box itself gets scrubbed out and louse powdered when dry.

Our run is grassed, so I have a plastic grass rake to pick up the droppings and leftovers in there every day. Water drinker is changed daily.

We've had our girls for 9 days and I can't remember life pre-chook now. All of our neighbours are fascinated by them!

Jules

[Bephlam]

ditto what Aunty Mo said...I do it once a month, but poo pick and add bedding daily.

Welcome to the vine - you'll be addicted in no time!!

[Bephlam]

Oh Jules...you won't have grass for long!!

[colliebird]

Has anyone just used newspaper for the floor of the hen house? I figured it could be taken out every day/every other day, and burned.
My coop (a triple dog kennel transformed for the chooks) is heaving with red mite at
the moment and I'm going to have to empty all the deep shavings and treat with Poultry Shield followed by an insect spray into all the crevises.

[MaureenHall]

Has anyone just used newspaper for the floor of the hen house? I figured it could be taken out every day/every other day, and burned.
My coop (a triple dog kennel transformed for the chooks) is heaving with red mite at
the moment and I'm going to have to empty all the deep shavings and treat with Poultry Shield followed by an insect spray into all the crevises.

I've given up on shavings/hemcore etc on the main floor of the coop and use just newspapers. It's so much quicker to clean out, the paper and poo can be composted, and there's nothing for the lice and mites to hide in. Luckily I have a granddaughter who works at a newsagents and she brings me a huge pile of papers every week, otherwise I'd be scrounging from neighbours

Oh yes, the floors in 2 of the coops are vinyl in one and laminate in the other so can be easily washed out using a mop and boiling water with disinfectant (***** ) in a bucket. Keep the bucket away from the chooks while you're working .......... if you can, nosy little blighters

[TPeers]

Hi - welcome to the mad house. Read the red mite thread for more on the subject but basically if you know you have a problem to start with then you will need to spray daily for a week or two, removing and cleaning evey part, spraying the roof, the walls - all the cracks and crevises everything - and don't expect to get all of the little pests! If you have roofing felt on your henhouse spray under the edge of it - the mite will be in there too. Remove it and change it if you can.

[colliebird]

Thank you for replying so quickly, I really appreciate it. Next Wednesday is going to be a very busy day, clearing out all the deep litter, spraying, fumigating (I've ordered some foggers. The smoke (fog) really gets into all the crevisses but I'll also be spraying Strikeback everywhere after that. We're starting at 7am, so it should be dry and habitable by the afternoon (hopefully)!
Premium Pest Control products from Strikeback

The floor of Cluckingham Palace is wood, as is the rest of the building.

Valerie

[colliebird]

Hi - welcome to the mad house. Read the red mite thread for more on the subject but basically if you know you have a problem to start with then you will need to spray daily for a week or two, removing and cleaning evey part, spraying the roof, the walls - all the cracks and crevises everything - and don't expect to get all of the little pests! If you have roofing felt on your henhouse spray under the edge of it - the mite will be in there too. Remove it and change it if you can.

I had the roof refelted only a few days ago, so I certainly won't be changing it for a long time.
By using only newspaper for the floor once it has been cleaned, hopefully the fight against the mites will be easier. And the little blighters bite humans!!!
I've been almost eaten alive these past few days, and today found clusters of thousands of them under a perch.