Making a dust bath, what to use

[rubyrogue]

I have one of those black concrete mixing things and was going to make my hens a dust bath. What do I put in it?

 

[Camelot Farms]

Mine LOVE fireplace ashes! I add sand to mine also.

 

[BoerneChickens]

I've heard food grade diotomacious earth (DE) is also good to add - it kills mites and lice - I'm planning to add some to my dust bath but my chicks are only a few weeks old so I haven't done it yet. I think Feed stores carry teh food grade DE - dont use the pool kind - or the garden kind - it has to say food grade from what I've read in other posts.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Sand or clean dirt. A bit of clean fire place ashes if you have any (plain wood ashes, nothing else), some diatomaceous earth if you want, a smidgen of sulfur powder if you like.

.....Alan.

 

[Bigfatchicken]

What I did is I took an old tire filled it with fine playgroung sand and now my chickens are loving it.

 

[donnavee]

We use a mixture of play sand, clean dirt, a little wood ash, and DE. Made a little "sand box" to sort of keep it all in and the girls absolutely love it. You will have to refresh it from time to time since it does go down over time.

 

[Dixiedoodle]

I used a bag of peat moss, two cups of wood ash, a shovel full of sand, cup of DE.. mixed it up really well the girls love it.. I have to add stuff almost every week.. But they say keep it dry if you add ashes--water will cause lye it leach into the dust. Not sure how true that is but I just made sure I put mine under the shelter.