Chicken Coop Cleaning Essentials

A clean chicken coop is essential to raising healthy backyard chickens. As any chicken keeper may tell you, keeping the chicken coop looking brand new is nearly impossible! However, there are ways you can keep your coop clean. No more smelly coops, no more dirty coops, and no more sick chickens. These chicken coop cleaning essentials are ones that I use all the time to keep my two homestead chicken coops looking and smelling great!

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Disclaimer: These cleaning tips are ones that I personally use for my own coops. They work for me and fit into my schedule. They are also appropriate for the area that I live in.

Why Clean the Coop?

Keeping a clean chicken coop not only makes caring for your homestead flock more pleasant, but it’s also a good biosecurity practice for keeping your flock healthy. A clean coop is pleasing to look at, never mind your flock who has to live in it all year round! By cleaning the coop on a regular basis you are…

• reducing respiratory hazards by minimizing dust build-up
• preventing ammonia fumes from becoming dangerous to you and your flock’s health
• keeping harmful pathogens from taking up residence and proliferating
• preventing bad bacteria from causing disease
• reducing the chance of contagious diseases from spreading
• making the life of the coop last longer

I have broken down the essential chores for cleaning a chicken coop into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly time periods. Some chores need to be done on a daily basis, others only need to be done once or twice a year. Hopefully this breakdown will make cleaning the coop seem manageable and not overwhelming!

Your chicken coop style, the area that you live in, and your schedule may determine how you clean your chicken coop. The bottom line is, keep a clean coop to keep a healthy flock of chickens!

You can check out my post on Regional Chicken Keeping Considerations for possible cleaning essentials that may be relevant for the area where you raise chickens. For tips on what to include in a chicken coop, make sure you check out Chicken Coop Building Essentials!

Daily Coop Cleaning

These are chores you do on a daily basis to keep your chicken coop clean. They can be done in the morning, afternoon, or evening.

• clean up droppings– varies depending on system
• sweep– anything that needs to be swept (people/storage area, shelves, steps)
• scrub and refill waterers
• scrape off cleaning shovels– I use a small garden shovel to clean up droppings so it needs to be scrapped off after every use
• empty poop bucket– dump the droppings in a designated compost area

The way that your coop is set up will determine how you clean up droppings. I have a droppings board below the roosts that I scrape off every morning. I also have sand as my chicken coop litter, so I use a kitty litter scoop to clean up the droppings in the sand every morning. Here are some other droppings systems that you might use:

• poop sling below roosts– needs to emptied every day
• poop pit (I don’t recommend these)– make sure the droppings stay in the poop pit and are composting
• wood shaving litter– stir the wood shavings to keep the droppings from gathering on top, remove clumps of droppings and wet litter
• straw litter– stir the straw to facilitate composting

Weekly Coop Cleaning

I do weekly chores once a week to maintain a clean coop. Usually I designate one chore to each day of the week so that I don’t have to do everything on one day.

• sweep hard-to-get-spots that get missed on a daily basis
• empty the poop bucket that I dump the daily morning droppings in into the compost
• organize the cleaning tools and buckets
• clean the nesting boxes- refill with fresh litter, add herbs

Since most of the simple chores get done on a daily basis, there are usually not many chores to do on a weekly basis.

Monthly Coop Cleaning

I do some chores once a month to keep my coop clean. I try to set aside the first Saturday of each month to tidy up the coop and do a chicken health check, but that doesn’t always happen. The chores end up getting done throughout the month instead.

• clean the doors- scrub off any dirt or splatters and clean with a window spray
• sweep off the windows- chicken dust gathers on the windows
• scrub the roosts- use a scrubby or stiff brush and warm water to clean off the roosts
• dust off nesting boxes- chicken dust gathers on the top of the nesting boxes

Some of these chores get neglected during the winter months, like cleaning the doors and scrubbing the roosts, due to the freezing temperatures. That means in the spring, a major cleaning job needs to be done!

Yearly Coop Cleaning

Yearly coop cleaning can be done once or twice a year. I usually do one big, thorough coop cleaning in June or July and then a smaller coop cleaning in September or October, before winter hits. The major coop cleaning usually requires a full day to complete, but when I’m done, the coop looks fantastic! Here is what I do for a major coop cleaning:

• vacuum every nook and cranny in the people/storage area and the chicken area– behind doors, rafters, corners, below roosts, behind nesting boxes, shelves, etc…
• dust places that the vacuum couldn’t reach– I usually use a broom
• scrub feeders and waterers- everything gets emptied, scrubbed, and dried
• scrub feed bins, oyster shell tub and dispenser, and treat bin– hose down and allow them to dry
• wash nesting box curtains– sometimes I have to make new ones
• scrub cleaning supplies– shovel, kitty litter scoop, poop buckets
• replenish sand bucket– I keep extra sand on hand to refill the nesting boxes or to replace dirty litter
• replace or replenish litter if needed– with sand, I only have to replace it every two or three years
• clean up and refill the nesting boxes with litter– scrub nesting box perches
• organize all of my cleaning tools and rearrange the feed/storage bins

After this thorough cleaning, the coop looks great! I like to make a checklist for myself so that I can check off chores as I complete them throughout the day.

Pre-Winter Touch Up

My monthly and daily chores help keep the coop mostly clean for a little while afterwards. However, eventually the dust builds up, the spiders make their home, and things get dirty again. That’s why I do another minor cleaning right before winter. Here is what I do in the fall to clean the coop:

• sweep down all of the cobwebs
• dust the feed tins, treat bin, and nesting boxes
• scrub the cleaning tools
• remove wet or dirty litter
• set aside extra litter to use throughout the winter

I also make sure I get my monthly chores done as soon as possible when the winter months start to approach.

For more information on preparing your chicken coop for winter, make sure you get our ebook on Winter Chicken Keeping!

Don’t Miss these Spots….

Cleaning the chicken coop can be a daunting task. When I clean my chicken coop, I usually start from the front and work my way back, vacuuming every crack, crevice, nook, and cranny along the way, from top to bottom! However, if that sounds too daunting, try tackling it section by section. Here are some spots you don’t want to miss when cleaning your chicken coop:

• door frames– cob webs form around door jams and door frames
• rafters- cob webs are dust gather on rafters
• cracks in the walls or floor- vacuum out all the dust, litter, and dirt
• shelves- dust gathers on top of shelves and cob webs form under shelves
• nesting boxes- dust gathers on the tops of nesting boxes
• corners– cob webs form in corners
• poop buckets– cleaning these is disgusting, but it will help manage the smell

These chicken coop cleaning essentials will help you keep your homestead coop clean and your flock healthy! Hopefully you can find a manageable and effective cleaning routine to make cleaning the coop as simple and easy as possible. I enjoy cleaning my chicken coop. It is very rewarding to see a clean, pretty coop once everything has been scrubbed, swept, vacuumed, wiped, and washed! My chickens enjoy their clean coop too! It keeps them happy and healthy!

For more tips on raising a homestead flock naturally, and like the early pioneers, make sure you are getting our weekly newsletter that contains new nuggets of poultry information every week!

by Alexa