4 Ways You Can Use An Air Compressor For Your Chickens
Chickens are easy animals to care for, but they do need some periodic work to keep them happy and healthy. When you first get chickens, they will need a place to sleep, nest, and play. You will also need to keep their living space clean and bacteria free will an annual spring cleaning. Here are four ways air compressor tools from sites like http://www.benscleaner.com will make these chicken-related chores a bit easier.
Build Your Chicken Coop
Your chickens will need a shelter that will keep the drafts and rain off them. As you build your chicken coop, using a hammer and nails will make the job take much longer than it needs to be. You will need to frame the chicken coop, nail up the walls, then hang roosting poles, and install a chicken ladder for your chickens to get up to their nesting area. That would take a lot of hammering nails to get it all put together, but not with a compressed air nail gun.
With an air compressed nail gun you can nail 40 to 60 nails per minute, instead of with a manual hammer. A manual hammer requires you to hit each nail head several times to get it all the way into the wood materials.
Keep Your Chickens Inside Their Run
Once you have built your chicken coop, your chickens will need a secure place they can run around, scratch, and peck at bugs in the ground. A chicken run provides your chickens with this safe space.
To fence in your chickens and to keep them safe, you must install a chicken wire barrier around and above their run. Otherwise, your chickens can fly out of your yard and into danger from neighborhood predators such as dogs, cats, and large birds.
You can hang chicken wire around the perimeter and over the top of your chicken run, enclosing your chickens inside. You don't need to use a manual staple gun that might give you blisters with all the trigger action you will need to do for your chicken run project. A staple gun will quickly staple each metal prong to attach the chicken wire with the push of a button.
Remove Dried Chicken Droppings
In the spring it is a good idea to clean out the inside of your chicken coop of all its dried-on layers of chicken poop. Chickens roost during the night and poop all over every surface beneath them. During the day they walk around inside their coop and poop all over the floor. Over time this layer dries and can become a couple inches thick.
If you have ever tried scraping clean the surfaces inside your coop with a square shovel, you will know that dried chicken poop can be nearly as hard as cement. Sandblasting is a great way to scrape off a year's supply of chicken droppings, and get the inside of your coop ready to disinfect.
Disinfect Your Coop for Spring Cleaning
With a clean coop, it is now ready to disinfect with a safe mixture of water and vinegar using a pressure washer. The vinegar helps to disinfect the surfaces in your coop, especially if your chickens have had any types of illnesses or disease.
Mix up one part water to one part white vinegar in a large bucket and feed it through your pressure washer. Spray it all over the inside of your coop including the floor, roosts, and nesting boxes. Once you have sprayed down your coop's interior, allow it to dry before refilling your nesting boxes with clean shavings.
These four air compressor uses will get your chicken jobs completed and improve the lives of your chickens.