Help with dust bath

[JDN]

Still trying to figure out how to post in the AZ thread, but anyway....... My girls don't like the stuff I have tried for the dust bath. They seem to like really fine dirt, but I can't find that anywhere. What mix do you use that your girls like??

I'm not from familiar with your area, but isn't AZ dry enough that they can take care of it on their own?

Someone asked me about providing a dust bath, but I always thought it was something for chickens that were permanently coop confined in a coop with a concrete type floor. Mine have a few dry shady spots (one in the run, one outside it and I'll periodically walk out to see them run up and shake all sorts of dust off, that it isn't a major concern.

 

[aart]

I have heard of a product called PDZ which is an all natural product lots of people use in place of DE. Haven’t tried it myself but actually on my way to go pick some up for my goat shelter. Zeolite it is much safer than DE and does not have the respiratory issues. You could look into that product. And yes I have also heard wood ash. Good call

PDZ isn't really used in place of DE, haven't read that one, unless it's to absorb moisture rather than the plethora of other things DE is supposed to 'cure'.
I use PDZ on my poop boards, and they will try to dust bathe there on occasion, good reason to use less than a half inch deep there. Not sure if it's much less of a respiratory risk, even the granulated can be pretty dusty and it's semi 'sharp'.

Dust baths, they laughed at my attempts, so I gave it up pretty quick, except to add some peat moss and/or wood ashes on occasion(they sometimes like and use it and sometimes move to another spot). They find their own spots and even under the coop stays dry enough to be thaw in the middle of winter for bathing. Tho I do grab a bucket of dirt from there in the fall in case it does freeze up and put it in a large tub in the coop.

 

[igorsMistress]

I live in AZ. I just dump some wood ash wherever my girls prefer to bathe. They didn't like sand at all, just the loose dirt in my yard, especially if I've just planted something there

 

[SGH]

I'm in Arizona, and mine free range and get inside of a horse stall, or go find the horse manure / shavings pile and dust bathe there

 

[llombardo]

I used peat moss and added some DE a couple days ago..

These are the boys..

 

[Pater est Pullis]

I use a mix of peat moss, sand, wood ash with a bit of DE, my girls love it

 

[Shezadandy]

If you need kind of a substrate to get an area (or two) started- buy a bag or two of either Nature's Bedding Pellets or Dry Den - they're the compressed pine pellets that come in 40lb bags. They're used in place of shavings.

Wet it down, rake it lightly into your dirt. Then watch the fun. Once it's wet, it becomes a very fine soft material.

Up here in the NW I use it as the floor bedding for the coop, and when they're out of dust in the run (because it's mud) they'll have huge dust bath parties in the coop floor.

I've got a few that love dusting in the Sweet PDZ powder. Not sure if it's a renegade group that made it up on their own when the big girls didn't let them play in their area or what- but there's about 7 that will go up on the poop board after it's cleaned and no matter how thin - will go to town on that.

 

[Zinjifrah]

Today my Silkie discovered the cement plant ring at the end of the run nobody would ever visit. Where there used to be a peach tree, which the pocket gopher ALSO killed. It had some old packed planting soil in it... which didn't scratch up very well. So I grabbed a planter I'd set up with starts that didn't start, and dumped the potting dirt in it into the ring - organic potting dirt, well composted, no fertilizers. The cheapest stuff from Walmart (That may be why my starts didn't start).

In about five minutes, I had one Silkie, three EE's and four Seramas all piled into a three-segment round cement planting ring, in a squirming pile of fluff, feathers and dirt. The Sebrights weren't in there, because they'd discovered I left the run door open and were out feasting on the honeyberry bushes. I now have three Sebrights with bright red beaks. I also now know that honeyberries can be used as a dye.

 

[featherhead007]

Have you tried this thread?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/arizona-chickens.31227/
I'm not in AZ but here I mix equal parts soil, sand, wood ashes and agricultural lime.

You raising chickens, or building a deep pit BBQ?

 

[JurassicChicken]

My girls have staked out a couple of places in their outdoor run where they created their own dust bath areas. They do prefer to make their dust baths themselves out of very fine dirt which they have thoroughly scratched into dust. Their run used to be a dog run, and still has an old doghouse which I stocked with some shovel fulls of their own dirt and some fine ash from the wood stove. The doghouse is always dry, and the chickens treat it like a wet weather spa, hanging out together in there as they have dust baths and watch the rain or snow.

The first time I saw a chicken having a dirt bath was at the local feed & seed store where they often have free range chickens during the summer months. I thought the bird was having convulsions and about to die but a young man who worked at the store explained the whole dust bath thing to me.