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Vent: used to scrub my coop with bleach every weekend, now I just add a fresh layer of pine shavings
For my first two years with chickens I was hauling out the hose every Saturday and spraying everything down with a bleach mix. My hens kept getting respiratory issues anyway, and my wife kept saying the coop smelled like a pool. Last spring a guy at the feed store in Bangor asked me why I was working so hard when chickens scratch through bedding on their own. Now I just scoop the worst spots and toss in a new bag of shavings every week or so, and I have not had a sick bird since. Has anyone else switched to the deep litter method and noticed a difference in winter?
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kim_brown10d ago
Did you notice the smell got better too once you stopped the bleach? I did the same thing for way too long, lugging that hose out every weekend like it was a religion, and my poor girls still sounded wheezy half the winter. Turns out I was making it worse, all that wet bedding and fumes hanging around. Switching to just piling shavings on top was a game changer, the bottom kind of composts itself and gives off a little heat when it gets cold out. My coop stays way warmer in January now and I have not dumped a bucket of bleach in there in over a year. Sorry you had to deal with sick birds before figuring it out, it really does feel like you were doing the right thing the whole time.
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