Spring Cleaning the Coop-

This post is linked to the 2nd Annual Hen House Hop.

The Saturday before Easter  I spent most of the day cleaning out the coop-

 

That week we had had a chicken snake make it’s way into the hen house …and The Honey ‘took him out’ I’ve got a few pictures you can see the damage and the end results This is the splintered wood after the shot gun blast inside the hen house… no chickens were harmed in the shooting of the snake. No EGGS were harmed in the shooting of the snake either. You can see the wood missing from the nest box…and the LAST EGG laid in that box. Still in tact!  Alas! No chicken will lay there now. Easter Saturday (the Saturday before Easter) I let the chickens out into the yard and got to cleaning! You can plainly see they enjoyed their time in the yard. 

While they were out playing in the yard… I cleared out all the layers of dirt and hay. Man! was it stinky. As soon as I got in there with the hay fork and started turning the dirt… I knew it was definitely time to get the dirt out!  I was able to fill the bed liner almost all the way up with good rich dirt for the yards and planting areas.

I used ‘lemon soap’ and bleach water and an old scrub brush with an extension wand on it, and scrubbed the dickens out of that coop.  I opened it all up;  let it air out and get really good and dry. I also sprinkled ‘food grade’ DE on the floor of the coop. (that is what the white powder is in the above photo) In the mean time  While I played in the dirt and cleaned up the coop, The Honey cut some wood and placed some dividers in the laying boxes. That is something we never put into the coop when we originally built it. After it dried out—I replaced the old shavings with new dry shavings. I sprinkled DE here,too.

Now they have a nice clean bed in which to lay. I love this view looking through the coop.The only problem is…they want to sleep outside the hen house now. They won’t go in except to lay eggs.

After the snake was shot—they wouldn’t lay eggs in there. They were laying them in the yard. We left them in the coop for about 3 days after finding the nest of eggs near the back porch…and now they’re back to laying in the laying boxes. However, they don’t lay in the one that was shot up—now they lay all the way to the opposite end.

Funny little birds!

You can see Our Coop Beginnings Here at last years entry to the Hen House Hop—it’s a video. Enjoy!

 

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23