Kinds of herbs for dust baths...

[Evenflo09]

Okay. Never heard of herbs for dust baths. Am interested as a pest deterrent. What kind do you use? If you don't garden, can you use plain ole jar cooking herbs? Maybe grinding yourself? Might be a silly idea, but thought I would ask as bags I've seen are way over my budget these days. I don't have any neighbors or friends who grow either. Thanks for any info.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

My humble opinion the best "natural" dust bath is fireplace ash from wood. If you are lucky to have a fireplace or burn pile, don't toss it out but instead use it in your chicken run for dust bathing.

I don't have a lot of faith in the herbs as I've not seen the promises actually fulfilled in any herbal. Some herbs are not safe for chickens.

LofMc

 

[Evenflo09]

My humble opinion the best "natural" dust bath is fireplace ash from wood. If you are lucky to have a fireplace or burn pile, don't toss it out but instead use it in your chicken run for dust bathing.

I don't have a lot of faith in the herbs as I've not seen the promises actually fulfilled in any herbal. Some herbs are not safe for chickens.

LofMc

Thank you. No ash either. I have a bag of diatomaceous earth to mix in, but otherwise just dirt, sand and DE. It's also a challenge finding a good recipe too.

 

[NatJ]

Plain dirt seems to work fine for chickens to dustbathe in.

Never heard of herbs for dust baths ... bags I've seen are way over my budget these days.

My personal guess: herbs in a chicken dust bath are a way for companies to earn more money (selling herbs), and for bloggers to get people to read articles. I don't think the herbs do much of anything useful for the chickens.

I've seen a wide variety of herbs recommended. There is so much variety that either every herb has value for this purpose, or else none of them really do much. The only thing I see that they have in common is that most of them smell or taste good to people.

 

[Shadrach]

Okay. Never heard of herbs for dust baths. Am interested as a pest deterrent. What kind do you use? If you don't garden, can you use plain ole jar cooking herbs? Maybe grinding yourself? Might be a silly idea, but thought I would ask as bags I've seen are way over my budget these days. I don't have any neighbors or friends who grow either. Thanks for any info.

Only one herb I can think of that chickens might like in their dust baths, but I don't want my chickens smoking, even in the bath.
I know the feeling about the prices. Grow your own and don't let the chickens near it is my advice.

 

[Battlepants]

My personal guess: herbs in a chicken dust bath are a way for companies to earn more money (selling herbs), and for bloggers to get people to read articles. I don't think the herbs do much of anything useful for the chickens.

Strongly agree. If I had a dollar for every time some "revolutionary product that is sweeping the nation" or "a secret that the big companies don't want you to know about" came out, I'd be rich. There's a good reason that most of these items don't catch on, they either don't work, have negatives outweighing the positives, or it's simply just as effective to do some completely free method.

To the note of herbs for pest control, I would argue for planting said herbs around the chicken coop/run. If they actually have some pest control element to them, why would you want to have to re-apply your pest control every week or so when you could just plant a few plants and be done with it. Additionally, adding green plant material to your dust bath will see that material decaying pretty quick, potentially attracting pests.