Doing My Chickens’ Dishes—the Power of Baking Soda
Aerial view of our coop and pen area, where there food and water dishes are located.
I’d like to think you’re here to witness the cleaning power of baking soda, but I suspect you might have a different topic in mind: “Why is this lady doing her chickens’ dishes? Why do the chickens have glassware—or ‘chickenware,’ shall we say—in the first place?” So before we get to the main event—tackling grease, grime, and gunk with nothing but soap and baking soda—let me address those (very fair) questions.
I thrifted glassware to use for feeding and watering my chickens and ducks, because glass is my favorite material. Where possible, I try to avoid plastic due to leaching and environmental impact. Metal is often better, but not a great fit for ferments (I ferment my chicken and duck feed) or acidic solutions (I add a splash of apple cider vinegar to the drinking bowls). With our relatively small flock and contained area, glass was a good fit for us.
I do not wash my birds’ dishware on a regular basis, but we are taking a break from our backyard chickens and ducks for a bit, which means all of this is going into storage, and it needed a good cleaning before I could pack it away.
Alright, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the cleaning power of baking soda!
Here are the chickens eating and drinking on a cold winter day.
This chickenware is filthy. Caked in gunk and grime. I feel fairly confident in saying that your dirtiest of kitchenware has got nothing on my chickenware.
And even so—check out these results from just a couple of minutes soaking in soap and baking soda, followed by a little elbow grease in the form of scrubbing. Even I was impressed!
For a full play-by-play and a bit more detail on the process, you can check out this video.
And now, if you please, feel free to enjoy a few gratuitous pictures of our adorable ducklings, as well as our ducks’ happiest day when our backyard flooded.
Ducklings exploring about 0.5” of water.
Backyard duck heaven—splashing around in a flooded yard.
P.S. All of our birds now reside in very happy homes—the ducks loving unlimited pond access at our CSA farm, and our chickens free ranging on a fellow chicken lover’s acreage.
