Power Washing our Chicken Coop
This weekend I got a bug in my britches and decided it would be a great time to clean out the coop. We have not had a deep clean of the coop since we built it a few years ago. I was well researched when I designed the coop, but practically ignorant, and as any service technician will tell you, you can read all you want, but until you do it, you have no idea what you’re doing.
Read on to understand why it is important for the health of your chickens and your own peace of mind to have roosts that are the proper spacing, height and sizing for your hens.
When I initially designed the coop, I put up these gorgeous crepe myrtle branches for my girls to roost on. The organic juxtaposition of the branches just delighted me and the entire design of the coop was stunning (IMHO.) As you can see from the photos, the white walls combined with the natural wood partition and the natural branches was lovely for the first few weeks…
Our coop before flooring (and before chickens)
What I didn’t know is that chickens prefer a much wider perch, and when you criss cross branches they are not smart enough to perch without pooping on one another. Additionally, installing roosts within 18 inches of the wall was, well… as you can see in the photo below… crappy.
Three years of wall poop (despite weekly cleanings)
A few weeks ago, Mom and I took down all of those branches and replaced them with simple shellacked 2x4s positioned wide side down. Now they have nice wide perches and they are spaced well enough apart that the hens don’t crap all over each other. I put them at three different heights to appeal to all of the different breeds we keep, and low enough to prevent bumblefoot as they decend (my initial layout was way too high.) But, in preparation for that blog post (which was supposed to be separate) I realized that the nice new wide and flat roosting bars, spaced appropriately 18 inches from the walls, and 18 inches from each other look quite nasty will the poop all over the walls.
New roosting bars before we lowered the height.
So this past weekend we hooked up the little pressure washer - it didn’t actually work so I tossed that one and went for the big guns. That one didn’t work either, but after some tedious maintenance and a short lecture on properly storing equipment (oops,) Dad had it up and running.
Power washing the chicken run
Sweeping out the poop water.
What’s grosser than gross - having chicken poop back spray in your face and hair and on your arms legs and everywhere… but I take heart in the knowledge that they will not poop on the walls again, and I shall never have to repeat that exercise.
Cleaned coop
I never stop with these chickens - my next project is to make a permanent little chick space for when we introduce new peeps to the flock and to add another feeder that is a no mess design like the one I have.
It is so much fun to grow and expand their digs.
