How did you add a dust bath to your brooder?

[LotsOLopsChicks]

Well I've got no place to crawl and their is NO WAY I am picking all the fertilizer pellets out lol. That'd take forever....haha.





Maybe some play sand, but I'm also broke..

OH! Wait! I have sand in my chicken coop for them to dust in! I betcha I can use that! DUH!

 

[Northern nurse]

I've used peat moss before, should be available in home and garden stores any time now, my girls loved it.

 

[lwiese58]

Oh mercy! I never even thought about the chicks needing to dust bathe, too. This is my first experience with tiny chicks, although I've had chickens, which we raised from pullet age. Is it dangerous to put a bit of wood ash in with the dirt, like we did for our grown hens? Maybe their respiratory systems aren't mature enough yet? We, I'm so thankful I ran across this thread!

 

[newmarch2014]

Play sand is washed with a chemical so I don't use it since they will undoubtedly eat it too. I get regular construction sand for between pavers or the stuff that comes in the sand tubes. I put it in a small pet watering dish at first but then they were all trying to crowd in and upset that one always hogged it. I haven't put one in this year but they loved loved loved it last year. A bag lasts a long time and I just keep a nice big dog bowl in the run now and they use it sometimes if the dug out spot in the compost is occupied.

 

[Karen711]

I don't know about potting soil, especially if it has fertilizer pellets in it. Do you have anywhere to get dry dirt, like a crawl space or from under your porch maybe? That's where I've been getting mine, crawling under the porch with a Tupperware dish and a garden trowel
If not, you can buy play sand fairly cheap! Or maybe pick any fertilizer bits out of the potting soil before you give it to them

I will check the potting soil. I do have play sand though so will just that.
Thanks so much!!