New High Pressure Water Cleaner has arrived …

I bought a high pressure water cleaner off e-bay. It’s a Memphis Aqua 3500PSI cleaner with a bunch of attachments. I need to clean out my chicken coop on a regular basis as my white leghorn chickens are suspected to have Marek’s disease (Turkey Herpes HTV). When the white leghorns die off, I will bring the Isa Browns into the coop. Before I do that, I have to eradicate the Marek’s disease pathogens from the coop.

I’ve read a few articles on the interweb about how to disinfect the coop for Marek’s and it appears that the process is going to involve some pretty nasty disinfectants. The Department of Primary Industry, Parks, Water and the Environment (DPIPWE) have the following article on disinfecting the chickens living area – Marek’s Disease, although they don’t mention a type of disinfectant to use. I have emailed the distributor of the HWPC to find out what chemicals I can use in the device … so I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve spoken with our vet (Montrose Veterinary Surgery) about disinfectants that are effective against the Marek’s disease pathogen, and her advice is to use Hospital grade bleach. My lovely wife and I decided that we’d like to find out, once and for all, if our chickens do indeed have Marek’s or if we have misdiagnosed the problem (I’m not a vet, so that is certainly possible). So we will need to take some of our chickens to the surgery for blood tests. I’m not keen on a post-mortem analysis, as that would be throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

If it is indeed Marek’s, then I will do a dry clean of the coop. That is, removing all of the chickens bedding manually, with pitchfork, spade and broom. Then I will use the HWPC with detergent to clean the coop out as thoroughly as possible, and then spray hospital grade bleach over the entire coop to kill the pathogens. All of this will be while the chickens are out free-ranging for the day. When the coop is clean and the bleach has dried, I will lay down new straw and wood shavings in the roost.

I will also need to have my other flock tested for Marek’s. If they both have it, then I’ll move all of the chickens in together, if not, I will keep them separated and repeat the disinfection clean-up on a regular basis (probably monthly).