Dust bath and mites

[Aki no niwatori]

Hello,

I hate to ask another repetitive dust bath question but the responses are always so mixed. So I will be making a dust bath using coarse sand and a touch of peat moss. I wouldn't mind occasionally adding a bit of dried herb or clove to the mix but I live in an area that sometimes gets a lot of rain and the old coop we just moved was a muddy mess. So I intend on remedying that but I don't want the dust bath to turn into a mud pit. I do not think I want to use DE but I am looking for the things I can add to keep it dry enough to be effective and to prevent mites. My main issue here is the mites and I understand the dust bath is a great preventative here. Which is why I posted it here not in the coop spot.

 

[nuthatched]

Can you put it in an old tire under something?

 

[Aki no niwatori]

Can you put it in an old tire under something?

I suppose I could but at the same time that doesn't quite improve the mixture I put in it.

 

[nuthatched]

I suppose I could but at the same time that doesn't quite improve the mixture I put in it.

There's nothing you can add to keep it dry

 

[Shadrach]

There's a problem.
I don't know what happened, but a vital piece of information got lost in the last one hundred years in when that information moved from Asia to the USA and Europe and that is why chickens dust bath. Chickens bath in dust to soak up the old oil that is secreted from their preen gland and from their feather foliciles.
There aren't many books that I know of that deal with this topic that one can still get hold of, the most recent I know of is in, The Chicken, A Natural History.
While dust bathing may remove some parasites it's not particulalry effective at removing parasites. Spend some time watching chickens dust bathing and one can begin to understand why this is.

The chicken digs a bit of a hollow in the ground with feet and beak and then rolls to one side and the other clawing loose earth particles into the air where thay fall under the gravity on to a pile of bouncy feathers. During this process the finer particles work down to the skin, the larger particles get shed in the next roll.
Even a handfull of fine dirt thrown tossed onto some mites won't kill them. I've tried, try yourself when you've got a few spare mites and some time on your hands.
So, the impact of the soil doesn't kill them.
Mites (except feather mites) live close to the skin and move around on the skin.
They're pretty quick. Pull back some feathers to expose the skin on a chicken that has mites and you'll find yourself chasing the buggers from one bunch of feathers to the next. Some might say that the mites suffocate under the dust. One would need enough dust in one hit to prevent the mite moving and stop it's air access. That's quite a lot of dust that has to work through the feathers to the skin.

Chickens dust bathe whether they've got mites or not. My point is if one accepts that they bathe to soak up oil then what makes good dustbath material will be different to the material one chooses if killing mites is the goal.

Plain old earth has worked for the chickens for thousands of years. Sand, maybe some in with the earth if it's fine enough. Peat moss I have no idea.

 

[50-45-1]

Wood ashes work good as an additive to a dust bath. But turn hard and clumpy if it gets wet.
You should figure out some way to put a roof over the "tire or box" to keep it dry as possible.
My chickens like to dust bathe under an old pickup truck that has not moved in years. Its dry under there most of the time.

 

[RenaeS]

I am going to tag on with another question. I am in the process of making a dust bath for my girls. Problem is I am in the pnw and get lots of rain. I know they prefer to do this in the sun but I'm putting it under the other half of the run that is totally covered. Will they use it? I would love to have one outside at some point too. Maybe when I can find a free large tire. But for now how do I get them to use the indoor one?

 

[Captain13]

I built a wooden frame for my dust bath then made a simple frame for a tin roof to go over it. The chickens seem to like the shade and use the dust bath a lot. Sometimes they just sit in it. The roof keeps it dry. Looks like you are in Upson County. I’m in Houston County so our climate is the same. Believe me, they like shade in the afternoons. I have sand in my dust bath and it stays relatively cool for them.