Dust Bath Area - Sand, Ash?!

[SlabtownFarm]

We have a tire we are going to fill for dust baths... I've read a lot of conflicting things and now I'm not sure what to use.

Is masonry sand okay? We can get that pretty cheap. I could probably get DE too, but read that may be bad. We have plenty of fireplace ash, so I can use that as well.

What is recommended?

 

[canesisters]

I didn't know there WAS a recommended dust bath filler. I have one of those turtle pools and filled it with shavings, sawdust, DE, some sand, a little dirt. The girls added some poo, a little grass, a few feathers. There's also some ants and other sparsely scattered brave insects.
I figured that if they will dig their own just about ANYWHERE (including the compost pile), then anything I provide would surely be good enough.

 

[polarbearpilot]

We have a tire we are going to fill for dust baths... I've read a lot of conflicting things and now I'm not sure what to use.

Is masonry sand okay? We can get that pretty cheap. I could probably get DE too, but read that may be bad. We have plenty of fireplace ash, so I can use that as well.

What is recommended?

I have not read anything about dust bath recommendations. I am only speaking from watching my chickens in my backyard. They love to take dust bath in old plain dry dirt. They just find a nice dry spot in the yard and start digging themselves a hole and lay in it.

 

[Going Quackers]

I read a ton of rather conflicting info on what was good/not ok etc.. so here is my "mix" dirt, wood ash, DE and some play sand, plus some shavings, sorta mulch like stuff from under the huge cedar trees that surround the one side of their run. They seem happy with this...

Tossed all mine in a tire too, best thing ever! they dig down super deep.

 

[BrownEggsnHam]

I built a decent, actually nice dust bath with many old bricks, a few days ago. the area was dug down so that the bathing area is about level with the surrounding ground area. I filled it with a good mix of sand, DE, wood ash and some dirt. I did this as the two hens in this run waited patiently, watching. Five minutes after completion, they check it out and immediately one starts scratching out a hole bordering one of the brick sides, only on the outside area of the dust bath. She then starts to enjoy her own dust bath, next to the one I had just built. After seeing her the other hen decides, "hey, great idea!" She then proceeds scratching out a hole on the opposite side of my dust bath, using the opposite brick side as her border. Then she immediately jumps in, rolls around, throws up dirt .... blah, blah, blah.

So I guess I could have saved myself some time and labor had I just dug a few places in the run loosening the soil a tad bit and they would have done the rest, building it the way they like and not the way this "hu-MAN" thought they would like. After one week now, they have yet to use the dust bath I built, but have added several of their own.

So now I feel experienced enough to ask," are you building the dust bath for you (your aesthetics/ideas) or them (their natural 'know how to do it right')?

 

[Alaskan]

How funny!

I on occasion dump my ash bucket into the chicken run, they like that.