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As I said in my last post, I am intending to move the coop to the back of the garden and swap the netting and run for an electric fence. Although I haven’t got the new fence yet, I have decided to take down the netting, and move the coop and run to a new location ready for the fence. This has allowed me to give the run a good clean and I have applied some mite spray.

The first thing that I did was to move the run away from the coop and to another part of the garden. I pushed the open side of the run up against the fence and put the chickens in there so that they couldn’t escape whilst I removed the net.

When I removed the run this is what was left behind...

I think the chickens enjoyed the grass when I moved the run

The next step was to remove the netting – I have to admit it was a lot easier to take down than it was to put up!

Here you can see what the chickens did to the ground behind the net

With the netting gone, we had access to all sides of the coop so we gave it a big clean out. First we removed all of the bedding, and then scrubbed everything down with hot soapy water. I let the coop dry and then sprayed everything with some mite spray (we used 2 cans of the stuff). I even removed the perches as they were not being used and provided more hiding places for the mites. I have included some pictures to show you the extent of the infestation.

This is the bit of wood I put in for the new nest area

Here is a (nice?) close up of the creatures...

This is the slot that the floor slides into. There were mites all along the back edge.

When I removed the percehes, this is what was lurking behind them.

As you can see the mites were everywhere! Once I had finished cleaning out the run I moved it to a new position – ready for the electric fence. I have replaced the wooden nest area with a plastic box. Hopefully this is the last of the mites…

This is the cleanest the coop has ever been!

The run in its new position