Are You Keeping Your Chicken Coop Clean Enough?

Keeping your chicken coop clean is an important issue. If not cleaned properly every so often you could wind up with birds stricken with disease or parasites. Eggs could become tainted and your chickens could be very stressed creatures.

We all know that clean is better in everything humankind does, whether it is the smooth hull on a sail boat that slips cleanly through the water after being scrapped clean of barnacles, replacing a plugged up gas line filter in an automobile to improve engine speed and power, tap water filtered of chlorine in a cozy home or a hot shower after a hard day's work. Don't you feel better knowing something that needs to be clean is clean.

Would it surprise you to know that for many animals it is the samethey prefer clean to dirty and chickens are no different? Now if you pen animals in with their own filth they will tolerate it, but give them a choice they will choose to be clean and will distance themselves from dirty conditions. So when keeping animals penned it is up to you to maintain their living areas in a reasonable state of cleanliness and that goes for the chicken coop as well.

To keep the coop clean you have to change the bedding material--wood chips or straw once it becomes dirty or damp. Make sure the nesting boxes are oriented in a way to keep the hens from sleeping on them. This definitely reduces chances of waste droppings winding up on the eggs. Chicken urine isn't a thin liquid, but a kind of thick paste and as with all urine there is the danger of ammonia build-up which if left un-checked can cause respiratory problems in the birds.

How often do you need to clean the coop? This may sound flippant, but you need to clean the coop as often as 'You Need To Clean The Coop'. Sometimes you will need to do it more often than at other times. About two times per year you need to do a thorough top to bottom cleaning. That's when you pull everything out and scrub down all the surfaces with disinfectant. Rinse completely and dry thoroughly going over all the surfaces, walls, the ceiling, floors, all the cracks and cerviceseverything! That is really keeping your chicken coop clean.

Because of this necessity, it is a very good idea to design 'cleaning access' into the coop before you build it, to make this part of looking after your birds as simple as possible.

In conclusionkeeping your chicken coop clean will make your birds happy and contented. This will keep disease and parasites at bay. You will get better meat and eggs because your birds living in a clean environment and will suffer less stress.