Dirty birds

[Rob Tof]

I have a question I’m a bit of a neat freak around my girls I keep there coop super clean there well fed and watered. I’m coming up on my first year of owning chickens. My problem is as soon as I let the girls out they go dust in the dirt under my porch. I used to have a white leg horn and EE. They are now brown with dirt. I have seen them on there backs rubbing and wolling in the dirt. All happy. Me not so much. Now my once white and clean girls are very dirty. Being winter I’m kinda afraid to wash them. Can you spray them down and wash them?

 

[AmazingRachel]

It's better not to. This is what chickens do in order to keep themselves "clean" in terms of suffocating mites and louse and removing dead skin cells and old oil. Just let them be.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

That's how a chicken takes a bath. It cleans their feathers and helps to control external parasites. It also is something the really enjoy. I personally wouldn't wash a chicken unless it needed it's bottom cleaned. Be prepared for them to regularly take a dust bath.

 

[Rob Tof]

They dusted all summer but they never looked dirty after. Over the winter they seem to like doing it under my porch and have turned brown. Both are supposed to be white.

 

[AmazingRachel]

They dusted all summer but they never looked dirty after. Over the winter they seem to like doing it under my porch and have turned brown. Both are supposed to be white.

Probably because the dirt is wet due to snow melt. You could make your own drier dust bath using fine sand, wood ash, and DE and put that in a deep pan in the coop's run.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'd leave them be.

That's the downside of having white birds My White Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorn are brownish too. No lice or mites though!

I'm like @oldhenlikesdogs no one gets a bath unless their rear end needs it.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Ditto to all the others ocd on the shelf please

 

[bmanty]

Agree with many on here, I have a few leghorns and they love the dirt, as do my reds and rocks. It is good for them. I would just let them be and they will keep themselves clean that way.
The only time I have washed any is after a wound or cleaning vent gleet.

 

[BantyChooks]

Ditto everyone else. My white birds get filthy this time of year, and always preen it off come summer with no help. Baths will only make them dirtier no matter how dry you thought they were!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Ditto everyone else. My white birds get filthy this time of year, and always preen it off come summer with no help. Baths will only make them dirtier no matter how dry you thought they were!

Most of my runs are covered, so they do have some relatively dry dirt (with wood ash too), but especially the Leghorn she has to stand in the rain, then roll around in the dirt.

I swear I hear her oink every once in a while, she looks like she having so much fun