Has anyone made your own dust bath

[bajabirdbrain]

Farm_Girl: You and your girls are lucky to be able to free range. We only let our girls out when one or both of us can keep an eye on them as they meander around the yard and into the neighboring blackberry/brushy areas. This time of year we can get around pretty easily as nothing is real thick, summers it is more difficult and we have to try and maintain a little trail system. We have eagles, hawks, coyotes, raccoons, & wandering dogs to keep away from the girls, so far, so good. I do carry a revolver around when I think of it, just in case, probably more for noise than being able to hit something!!

 

[nminusyplusm]

I use a rubber tub filled with 2/3 dirt (my dirt is sandy loam) and 1/3 wood ash from my stove.

 

[Beer can]

My birds dust bathe in their deep litter, broke down tree leaves sawdust and wood ashes. We have a outside wood boiler so plenty of ashes, and cut our own wood so plenty of sawdust, and the tree leaves in the fall free. The deep litter resembles dry peat moss it's so broke down.
Never seen any bugs on them.

 

[Crow-ded house]

So can you use peat moss in a bag from walmart garden center and play sand from walmart? If yes what brands?

 

[bajabirdbrain]

We use half wood ash and half peat moss and, yes, we buy the peat moss at WalMart. For some reason we add a shovel or two of sand I bought at a nursery. Had read somewhere about what type of sand one should use around chickens. We replaced the pine shavings in the coop with sand and, besides being thrilled with this change, we had left over sand to use in our dust bath. Plastic swimming pool also from Walmart, about $5!

 

[SW31]

We used an old cat litter tray, first drilling some drainage homes, and filled it with composted earth and wood ash. It’s ok but a bit small for them but better than nothing. They really liked it. But it does need a higher side to keep the mixture in, an old tyre would be better.
Best of all though is when they freerange and go into my raised vegetable beds. They’ve taken over one that has some Dalia tubers in it. As long as they stick to this one bed I’ll compromise but the other three beds they know are a no no!

 

[henaynei]

I've never seen the advantage in providing a dust bath for my birds; they do it themselves better than I ever could...perfect location (several, actually) of their choice, soil to their liking, and FREE

Our ground is mostly clay and rarely drains enough to get dusty (unless we’re in a drought) so made-by-me dust baths is the way I have to go