HF thanks for the info you sent me, very useful and will be doing that.
How long would it take until the chickens can be moved back in to the coop? As we only have one coop coming I'm not sure I could get it disinfected and dry in one day? Mind if I pick the right day weather wise it's possible I guess?
This time of year it should be dry within 3 or 4 hours at the most. It doesn't need to be bone dry as long as there's no puddling or actual wet material for them to eat.
When cleaning if you use the Diatomaceous earth slurry painting method all you need to do is a scrape and reapply any DE that has worn off. I usually don't use a detergent on a regular basis as this leaches out the insecticide treatment but I spray with a low pressure disinfectant (vanodine V18) and replace soiled litter. I only do this on a 2 to 4 week period as my flooring is arranged for droppings to fall through and be collected. The DE painted roosting bars stops the droppings from sticking and they fall through to the lower floor collecting pan which the chx have no access to. I don't poo pick the litter ever.
On a weekly or daily basis (as needed) I empty out the nestbox litter (softwood shavings ) and use it to refresh the droppings surface so it remains reasonably clean and builds up an dry bed of litter under the perches. Once this gets full I do a full clean, perches out, scrape touch up repaint with DE, sweep the old litter out (you need a completely flat floor pan). Light spray with a disinfectant. New clean litter back in replace perches. Done
Twice a year (late Mar and late Oct ish) I do a deep clean with a power hose and detergent and disinfectant and reapply totally DE paint. At the spring deep clean I reapply the insecticide on a good drying day.
In summer my birds spend virtually all daylight hours in their run which is fairly low density 5 - 6 sqm /bird. They just visit the house to lay and roost at night so it doesn't get too dirty and I don't replace the litter as regularly as in winter. For example I've just cleaned them out and replaced the litter after 6weeks from the last clean and it was very dry and not too dirty at all. The perches only needed a light scrape and a paint with DE.
Good ventillation dry conditions, keeping the surface of the litter topped with clean shavings (from nestboxes) and using DE and disinfectant spray is the key.
HF