My day starts out at 5:30 am when Wylie and I go out and get the newspaper. We then walk over to the coop and wake up the rooster when we open the door to the run. We go back to the house, Wylie goes back to bed, but I stay up. It’s around 7:30 when I head back out to feed and clean up the coop.

The feed room is the first room you walk into when entering the coop. I store the layer and scratch grain in the large blue containers. The small green containers hold the grit and oyster shell. The chicken treats of mealworms are in the little pink bag. In the far pink bucket are my cleaning supplies.

Another view of the feed room. I use pine and cedar chip for the coop floor. It’s easier than raking up straw and of course the pine and cedar smell so good.

One of my favorite products is Nesting Box Blend. I add it to the nesting boxes and sprinkle some on the floor. It contains lavender, chamomile, bay leaves, eucalyptus leaves, oregano, peppermint, tansy, wormwood, marigold petals, spearmint and catnip. It repells pest and is an anti-mite preventive. It wards off bugs, is also antifungal, antiseptic, soothing and healing. It’s no wonder I am relaxed and calm after I clean the coop! I get the nesting box blend from a company called “Treats for Chickens”. They have a lot of other products that the girls love such as Chicken Crack and Worms and Harvest Flakes.

These are some of the products that I use daily. For fly control, I use a mixture of Melaleuca products, 1 tsp of Tough and Tender, 1 tsp of Renew Bath Oil, and 10 drops of T36-C5 Melaleuca Oil (tea tree oil). I disinfect the walls and roost daily with Sol-U-Guard, another Melaleuca product. Anti-Icky-Poo is a great odor control. It is a live bacteria to eliminate any organic bacteria. Anti-Icky-Poo’s friendly microbes eats away the source of odor and eliminates the problem from returning. I also put apple cider vinegar in their water. ACV causes an alkaline effect which reduces the likelihood of illness and helps to support the immune system.
I enjoy using these products and they are all safe for the environment and pets, and they really, really work!
If you are interested in Melaleuca, let me know as I can get you in touch with some wonderful people who would be more than happy to help you get starting with Melaleuca.

I have a lot of help, or maybe they are inspecting the coop to see that I am doing a good job. I love the pine roost that Jack, my interior coop designer built for them.

Another pine roost and the nesting boxes. I have a whole wall full of boxes, but we only have 3 open as you only need 1 box per 5 birds. Blocking them off keeps the chickens out of them, so I don’t have to clean them up!