Is it relaxation or is it a stress response?

[loofa]

I'm about to bathe a little rescue roo that has landed in my care unexpectedly. He is filthy, underweight, and has a lot of damaged feathers, red inflamed skin, places where he has been pecked. I want to clean him and get a better look at his skin. Since I've never bathed a chicken before I was just doing some reading about it and saw several posts around the internet where people say that they hate it at first, but often relax and seem to really enjoy their bath. My first thought was "I bet that's a stress response, not true relaxation". I know that individual chickens will have individual reactions to things, but in general, assuming they start by clearly hating it, do you all think the appearance of relaxation is likely what it looks like?

 

[WildNectarine]

I'm about to bathe a little rescue roo that has landed in my care unexpectedly. He is filthy, underweight, and has a lot of damaged feathers, red inflamed skin, places where he has been pecked. I want to clean him and get a better look at his skin. Since I've never bathed a chicken before I was just doing some reading about it and saw several posts around the internet where people say that they hate it at first, but often relax and seem to really enjoy their bath. My first thought was "I bet that's a stress response, not true relaxation". I know that individual chickens will have individual reactions to things, but in general, assuming they start by clearly hating it, do you all think the appearance of relaxation is likely what it looks like?

Oh yes, definitely! I’m a quail person, and whenever I have to do basic care things like foot-baths or nail trims, they’ll struggle, then eventually tire themselves out and start closing their eyes, which is definitely a stress response, but could be seen as “relaxing” to the untrained eye. I keep things short and work fast, but it can be hard to be fast and correct without hurting them, I know a bit about dirty feathers, a few of my quail have chronic poopy-butts, not caused by diarrhea or anything medical, just too many feathers back there, and need regular cleaning/feather trimming, but what I do instead of fully soaking them is I just have a helper hold them, and use a warm paper towel and work things out of the feathers, sometimes you accidentally pull a few smaller ones, but if you just do a gentle money-rubbing type motion, and even use a bit of your nail, because you can always wash your hands, you can get most stuff out that way, so I’d try a wipe-down, or maybe a couple in short increments throughout the day, before a full-on bath, but I don’t know your situation fully, either, so it’s up to you!

 

[WildNectarine]

Oh, also, putting something over their eyes, like a towel, but being careful that they can still breathe, can help tremendously!