Dust bath???

[Ruler of the Roost]

Like the title says, totally clueless. Just read across the term when researching safe fly extermination in the run. I thought dust baths were a chinchilla thing… how do I apply this logic to chickens.

 

[nuthatched]

Peat moss or they'll dig one themselves. Birds that use running as their primary transport (quail, turkeys, chickens, pheasants, guineas etc) don't use water to bathe, they use dirt.

 

[azygous]

Dust baths are chickens' path to ecstasy. They prefer it to be in the warm sun because they achieve two objectives - one is to condition their skin and feathers and the other is absorption of vitamin D through their feathers.

The dust bath medium should be fine, not too coarse. Native soils such as loam, sand, or loose clay powder will do just fine. If you wish to make an artificial bath for their run, peat moss or fine sand are ideal. My chickens love to dirt bathe in the decomposed horse manure in my composting bin as well as the pine duff and natural clay soil.

Chickens will demonstrate pure pleasure as they dust bathe, and generally they like to get as close as possible to each other, even chickens that don't particularly like one another will bliss out while scrunched tightly together. Dust bathing is essential to chicken self grooming, health and well being and social cohesion. Here are a few of my chickens dust bathing in the sand in their run.

 

[nuthatched]

Here are my dudes dustbathing, it's bonding experience for them.

 

[Perris]

and here are some of mine at it yesterday

 

[rosemarythyme]

10 day olds having their first bath - they're just rolling around in the run litter. It's all instinctive.

 

[alinas2010]

Ours have a bucket full of peat moss. Sometimes they use it, sometimes they prefer the sand/dirt mixture on their run floor. Oh how I just love watching them dirt bathe they really enjoy it so much.

 

[Perris]

here's some more littles, doing it in a sand and bonfire ash bath just for them