Chipmunk Dance Rave Party

Coop Cleaning Day.

With a rare day off from work, the season now turning, and an unseasonably warm day, it was time to clean the coop!

There are all manner and schools of thought on coop cleaning as to ‘how to’, ‘how often’ etc. Over the years I’ve settled on a modified deep litter method. My whole life is one little modification after another on this or that and thus life gets accomplished one small step at a time. The big disasters, the big rites of passage, the big benefits that come and go are glorious, tragic, memorable things – or what have you – but I find it is the little things that I revel in most of all.

Cleaning the coop isn’t exactly a task I ‘revel’ in. From my perspective, I’d call it ‘Herculean’, but let me explain that.

Cleaning my small coop is far, far from the level of cleaning the Augean stables. But you must also remember that I am far, far from the level of Hercules! I am a small man who moves through my small life in my small ways and relish doing so.

So, I won’t go through the step by step of the autumn clean-out and neither should you, my dear readers, put too much stock in the particular methods and advice from random kook on the interwebs, but these are the basics of a full clean out …

Remove all bedding (shag cut pine shavings this time). Sweep out every bit you can along with any cobwebs and especially the build up of chicken dander.

Scrape out any build up of manure … this can happen, it is natural, and a darn good time to be on top of it!

Wash out the coop with soapy water, brush it down with a stiff brush, and take care over the ‘poopy’ parts to make sure it is loosened and gone. It will never be perfect.

As long at you’re waiting for things to get dry, take the time to check out the space for any damage, rot, fence mending, weak spots in the defenses, and any other issues!

Take the whole lot of the material out to your compost.

Spread out the new bedding … evenly as possible. Doesn’t really matter, the flock will move the bedding to the exact spaces that you thought they wouldn’t want it. They choose different spots each time and always in direct opposition to where you thought that may be even if it is also in direct opposition to where they had moved it to the last time. Their union meetings cover these issues in great detail. My flock is quite adept at thwarting my best efforts to please them.

Regardless, I know once the flock ventures back into the coop this evening there will be a ruckus.

“THIS IS DIFFERENT! WE JUST HAD EVERYTHING PERFECT AND NOW IT’S DIFFERENT! IT IS DIFFERENT AND NOT THE SAME!”

The ‘redecorating’ will then commence.

Don’t use bleach in your cleaning. Bleach is one of the cheapest and most effective agents against mold, bacteria, fungus, microbes, etc. Never the less it is caustic and most coops have some degree of porous wooden surfaces. Also, chicken manure has a strong level of ammonia and ammonia mixed with bleach creates a deadly gas that can overwhelm you. Although, a coop should be well ventilated to begin with and especially while a person is cleaning it! Soap and water will suffice, but if there is a real problem, there are non bleach disinfectants on the market.

Although my full clean out is twice a year, over the courses in between, I do clean out layers of poop and other issues throughout as needed.

My modifications for THIS season are that I’ve gone back to straw for the winter. I prefer the pine shavings, but that can get kicked around by the flock too easily and I feel a good layer of straw to start will lock the bedding down better for the winter months. As I do the minor clean out, new bedding added will be the shavings and that should work well in conjunction with the straw. Or … I’m totally over thinking everything … but if you’ve been reading my story all along, then you already knew that!

For THIS clean out, I’ve added some food grade diatomaceous earth to the bedding. Sprinkled about. Normally, I consider this to be counter intuitive to a deep litter method, but since the possibility of parasites has been on my mind, I thought I’d take the extra precaution this time around. A little goes a long way.

However a person manages their coop … all the petty little details … the most important things in a coop are dry, ventilated, and secure. The rest are all arguable details.

In other news:
The gentleman caller is back again. He’s tried to rub up against my legs, and I must fight every urge to pet him. He is a stranger outdoor cat and I have no notion of whether or not he has fleas or mites. He is quite vocal and speaks to me warmly each time I pass by with my doings. The flock takes no particular notice of him, nor he them. My flock, enjoying the outside forage time during the clean out, continue to drift to the neighbor’s bush … so my whole exercise this morning was punctuated with cries to the gentleman caller of “But you’re not even my cat!” and chides to the flock of “Get out from under there … COQ AU! You’re supposed to be HELPING me by keeping them sorted!”

Also, if you’ve seen the picture of the cat from previous posts, you may have taken notice of the plank boards he is sitting on which are part of my front porch area. Underneath these boards is a colony of chipmunks (who also do not trouble the cat, nor he them). But last night, as is increasingly common this time of year, was another ‘chipmunk dance rave party’. Through my open window came the continued strains of rave music and chipmunk sex. It leaves me to wonder how does the chipmunk DJ gets his equipment under the boards and just where do they get the tiny glow sticks?

My own cats Moonkie and Osha were greatly concerned for the chipmunks’ well being and perched themselves by the open window eagerly listening for sounds of trouble and trying to devise a way to assist. Unfortunately for them, I did not allow an opportunity for them to go out and attend to the issue directly.

So, another day, another round of redecorating for the flock’s union, another day of hangovers for the chipmunks, and another day of unrequited love for the mysterious neighborhood cat on the porch, who … is still not my cat.