Our chickens have been free ranging along the edges of the house and digging a lot along there. They want to do it again, but the house was power washed yesterday with a mild bleach solution and I'm sure some of it ran off into the leaves and grass the chickens have been digging in. Do you think it is safe to let them dig along the edges? How long until the bleach is neutralized and no longer a threat? We can't smell it anymore, so maybe its no longer an issue, but I wanted to make sure.
thanks!
Help!
Not sure what others think, but chlorine dissipates fairly quickly. Instructions for using chlorinated water to replenish fish tanks direct you to let the water sit out in an open container for several hours, and then it's safe to use.
Hi Greenhousegal,
thank you for the quick response. I was worried when I found a dead mouse in the middle of the front yard with no obvious cause for it's demise apparent. I'm not doing an autopsy on a mouse, so I wanted to just get popular opinion on the safety of the house wash......
Sigh, another day..... the adventure never ends!
Did the powerwash contain anything more than mild bleach? And was it a chlorine-based bleach? I'd be worried about a dead mouse, too. I know that powerwashing my house one year resulted in a lot of dead foundation plants because of the bleach, but I don't remember exactly what they used. Maybe the mouse drowned???
I was wondering that too...the bleach would dissipate quickly, but I would be surprised if there were not other chemicals involved, if only to stablise the the bleach.
Well, to be safe, I can keep the girls away from the house until after Hurricane Earl passes (on friday, supposedly). The rain should wash away/dilute any residue that is left....
The plants were a little trampled, but so far none have died and I have a LOT of plants!
Thanks all!
Chlorine is rapidly neutralized by organic material. That is why anything that you want to disinfect needs to be cleaned first. At least, this is what they taught us when I worked in research labs. They said, for instance, that if you spilled something in the incubator, you needed to take the tray out and clean it with soap and water, and then use bleach because you needed to remove the spill before the bleach could be truly effective. We used a 10% bleach solution for disinfecting, and it needed to be made up every day as it was only good for 24 hours.
So I imagine that the runoff has been neutralized fairly effectively by the soil.
Hi gallesfarm. I think the concern was more if anything in addition to bleach was in the cleaning solution. Bleach definitely has a short active life and is inactivated by organic material. We have to clean everything in our labs and greenhouses before using bleach as a final disinfectant, and also make up fresh solutions as you said.