Chickens are dirty. Let's Make it Clean!

Keeping chickens is a blast. It comes with many rewards and some of which are the challenges it brings. You learn responsibility, accountability, perseverance, and discipline. These things come naturally to the farmer, and farm-kids. I wasn't as fortunate to grow up on farm, instead now I'm living out a mini fantasy by keeping dozens of animals in my house and yard. With that  desire to be a farm kid comes the grim reality of farm chores and cleaning, getting up early and dealing with things you don't want to deal with, no matter how cold, wet or hot it is outside...or how tipsy you got last night.

Learning what it takes to raise animals and keep chickens, has certainly moulded my work ethic and pushing my skills to be responsible with my animal husbandry. For months and years before I got my first chickens, I read countless books, blogs, web forums and asked questions, I did my research. One thing, that whole time was omitted - how dusty chickens can be and what it's really like to clean up after them. You'll see countless beautiful coops on Pinterest, you'll see pretty chickens in glorious gardens, but you wont see what I'm about to show you! Warning: dust, manure and gross cleaning pictures ahead.

In side the shed area, not actually including the chicken coop area.
You can see the dust build up on the bin lids on the left. It's time for some changes!
Just look at that floor of shame!

Seeing is believing - I'm not trying deter you from getting chickens or bash the hobby, I just want to be real, and share my experiences and give people out there a reality check. It takes a lot of work to keep a clean chicken coop, wither it's little bits here and there, every day or so, or a big clean-up from time to time. If you've seen a very clean coop its one of two things; brand new and staged or incredibly well kept. For most of us, it's a challenge to keep a good balance of clean and function and being realistic. I'm not a full time farmer, I wake up early I check on "my girls" and I try not to get chicken dust on my work clothes. I love Martha Stewart, but I can't picture her doing what I'm about to demonstrate, no way, she's hired people for this dirty job. I remember my boyfriend asked if he could help me once - I just laughed. Sorry honey - you're a city boy. 

Chickens are constantly creating waste, they eat all the time and poop every 5-10 minutes. On top of this they shed feathers, and the new feather sheaths are shed and instantly disintegrate into this ultra fine powder - that gets on everything. I've seen chandeliers in chickens coops - how cute. I get big cobwebs in my shed and the dust covers them, it's kind of cool, but they're basically big floating 3D dust pillows. It reminds of in the classic "Snow White" movie when the squirrels are helping clean up with they're tails. No offence to the "Fancy Farm Girl" but there is a reason we only see one set of pictures of this coop - dust and poop. Click here to see her post. Not to be cynical- but let's see an update of this here coop.

Picture from The Fancy Farm Girl website. 

Some big key tips for keeping a clean coop - make it easy to clean. If you make all these fancy door ways and carpentry, can you really get around all of that to clean with the tools that will work? Small coops are notorious for this problem, yes it's cute, it's got a mini door, but can you fit in there to clean it? Make the entire side be able to either be removed or hinge open for easy cleaning and have the mini door within the larger panel. 

Being disciplined about cleaning is my biggest challenge. I never WANT to clean my coops, but I HAVE to and I honestly should be doing it more often. I wait too long almost each time I want to do a big clean - especially during and after winter. My excuses are something along the lines of - spent shavings and manure take up a lot of room on the manure pile, and I want to save money on new shavings by waiting as long as I can. I also hesitate when it's really hot because the smell picks up when I'm disturbing the manure layer. My real restrictions are that - I need most of a day to do all the cleaning, I'm going to get very very dirty, and sweaty and I don't like to do it when my chicken hating neighbours are working in there yard.

Here we have the two looks when I clean in and around my coop. The simple look is aptly-named; an old T-shirt, a good quality mask and a bandana to keep hair out of my face. For a more intense clean I like to wear the bandana over the mask - although I should probably buy a respirator, plastic protective eye wear and my manure expo hat for irony.

My new plan of action should be smaller bouts of cleaning each week to prevent the mega clean every few months. I'm going to make a rotating cleaning list on top of the daily chores I need to do, this SHOULD keep me in check. This 15 day rotation might seem strict - but that's what it takes. It means less work in the long run, otherwise I'd have to do all of those items all in one day. We'll see if it works!

Each task should take between 5-10 minutes, no more,
and I keep all of my cleaning supplies for these tasks in the shed,
ready to be used! I might make some adjustments; as the coop might get too clean.

I figure by raking or cleaning under the roosting bars every five days or so, it should prevent the majority of the poop mess in the coop. They poop the most in that area, and as a result, it builds up in a thick layer there. A really clean coop, also means cleaner chickens! My chickens are fairly clean, but they do like to stay tidy, if you've ever observed some of their preening habits it's pretty cute - they'll also wipe off their beaks to remove maybe some wet food  - like fresh pumpkin! I may have to remake the chore list and include rabbit and quail chores, generally though they're slightly lower maintenance. Lots of changes and fun stuff to come here, I can't wait to share it! Stay tuned - you wont want to miss my upcoming coop make-over!