Chicken throwing pine chips on her back

[luvmygirlsinAK]

This sounds exactly like a chicken doing what a chicken does in a dust bath. The description is exactly the same as what mine do in their tub full of sand. It helps to get rid of uninvited guests on their body. We just had a new chicken come to us, having been raised in the house, she didn't know what a regular chicken feeder/waterer was, I had to teach her. I caught her doing the dust bath thing in a nesting box where she feels a little safer to sit and watch all the goings on-I'm sure she doesn't even know what all those weird looking animals are in her new house!!!

I will probably have to teach her the dust bath wriggle in the real thing-the sandbox. Only I'm not going to be the one to get in the tub! She's just going to have to watch the others and learn from them!!

If you don't have a small sandbox in the coop for your chickies, you have no idea of all the giggles that go on when we watch a chicken taking their daily bath-usually shortly after laying an egg!

 

[luvmygirlsinAK]

Forgot to add: When my chickens are interested in "remodeling" the inside of their nest, they do something entirely different, they will pick up this bit of hay and move it here, this piece of shaving and position it just right, there, and will go to another nesting box to steal a piece of hay from it. Totally different actions altogether than the dust bath wriggle and throw it on the back thing!