There was a whiff of Spring in the air, and the weather looked warm. Time to tackle the first seasonal deep clean of the chicken coops!
I used to do all the dismantling, cleaning, drying, disinfecting, re-mantling of all the coops in the same day. I wasn't sure I had enough energy for that, so I worked out a plan to do it over two days.
Day one went well, better than I expected.
I emptied one of the Cubes (not the one the Girls use to lay in), and scrubbed and jet washed everything, even the front. We are in a shaded art of the garden, so everything gets covered in green stuff, and it takes some effort to remove.
I did the spare coop, if I hadn't done it at that point it wouldn't have got done. Then I did the outside of the second Cube. I was meant to stop at this point, but I decided I'd do the poo trays and part of the inside, and I'd leave the nestbox until the following day.
I'd been scrubbing the roosting bars, poo trays, nestbox divider, and coop back, on the patio, and then jet washing them. The patio was striated where the algae had been partially blasted. So, while I was waiting for the coop stuff to dry enough for me to disinfect with Poultry Shield, I decided to jet wash (part of) the patio.
I did one section at a time. This gave me some satisfaction as I joined up the striations. It enabled me to see clearly what progress I was making, and it meant I could stop at any time. I did enough so that we could put the yet-to-be-emptied-at-that-point summerhouse contents out on it.
After I'd done the disinfecting, and the re-mantling, I was pooped and didn't finish the patio.
The next day it was cold, and then it rained, and then it rained and it was cold.
It took until Yesterday to get warm enough for me to finish the second coop, which required all the inside cleaning again at this point. I didn't have the energy to finish the patio. I did suddently remember that I had a patio head for the pressure washer, so I got it out of the recently emptied MyShed, and it's sitting in the kitchen waiting for me to go out use it. We've got a big swing seat thing on the patio, and I can't move it on my own. And the weather is now rubbish.
That's my excuse, any way.
