What prompts me to bathe a Silkie is determined at how much gunk is around the vent. I don't usually bathe the whole body. Dirt clumps can dry on the vent feathers or poop sticks on there. I want to keep the vent area clear for egg laying or pooping so I monitor. Bathing the Silkie after roosting for the night is the easiest time to handle chickens. I put them in an empty deep sink that has a fine mesh strainer over the drain to catch small gravel or dirt clumps. I used to use a mat or terry washcloth on the bottom of the sink for the chicken to stand on but it doesn't help so I don't use mats any more. I first use a gentle faucet sprayer of warm water to loosen gunk on the Silkie's tush and gently finger off the gunk. After the initial warm gunk removal I use no-tears baby shampoo on the tush which is very good at removing gunk, sometimes 2 or 3 applications of shampoo and rinsing. For the crest I don't shampoo but use a soft wet baby washcloth to work any gunk out of the crest feathers - I don't want water going into the nostrils. Some owners will use a shallow pool of warm water to dunk their chickens but I find the faucet sprayer gives me more control and is cleaner for rinsing. I have one Silkie that is accustomed to tush shampoos because she was a house chicken in diapers for 3 months and got accustomed to baths and she's easy to handle by myself. I have another Silkie that is not accustomed to baths so my DH holds her from flapping in the sink while I bathe her. An extra hand is always helpful if I don't want water flapped all over me or my walls! No-tears baby shampoo is nice in case it splashes into my or my chicken's eyes. We have a large dry bath towel ready with heavy-duty absorbent paper towels lined on it and wrap the wet chicken inside leaving only the chicken's head out. We unfold the toweled Silkie on a drying TV tray or table and put the blowdryer setting on low warm and start blowdrying the bird. Chickens usually like the blowdryer and stand pretty still for the dryer. I don't use those huge long-nozzled blowdryers -- I use a smaller light-weight Pro Baby dryer. While drying I massage the feathers with my fingers so I can feel if the dryer air is getting too warm for the chicken and keep moving in different areas while drying. Chickens don't like air in their face so I dry from behind or the sides of the chicken. After the chicken is dry I spray her with Manna Pro Poultry Protector (per label instructions) for lice/mite prevention, and use vitamin E oil with Q-tips and cotton balls to swab the comb, beak, face-eye area, legs, toes, and toenails and even into some of the leg/toe feathers is ok. The vet gave us this advice instead of using greasy vaseline which doesn't nourish chicken skin like vitamin A or E oil. Plus the vitamin oils absorbs into the chicken's skin overnight and there's no greasy residue on the feathers in the morning like vaseline leaves behind.
We gave our 6-yr-old Partridge a bath last night, applied vitamin E oil to her, gave her a drop of Poly-Vi-Sol no-iron children's vitamin (a single drop), and raisins as a treat afterwards - she hated the water but loved the blow drying and raisins! She molted and has been growing in new feathers and there are still new feather shafts in her crest that need to work their way out although I tried to remove all the easy ones. Partridge is one of the easiest colors to have because it's hard to tell when she is clean or dirty because of the camouflage feathering.
Clean and shiny after a shampoo bath! She's been strutting around the backyard today like she knows she's the prettiest chicken today.
