What is your favorite dust bath mixture?

[Victoria-nola]

I am trying to figure out what would be the best for the dust bath for the chickens. I read some of the posts, but what is DE?

DE is diatomaceous earth, the ground-up skeletons of microscopic ocean organisms. You must purchase "food grade" DE. NEVER EVER EVER use pool grade DE, which has been heat and chemically treated and is highly toxic for everyone and everything.

I had a hen get ill and took her in to the vet (and she got well). I also took a fecal sample. The results were that she has no parasites whatsoever, inside or on her skin, and due to the nature of a bird flock, if the one hen is parasite free, the other hens are assumed to also be parasite free. Their pine-shavings layer on the floor of the coop has DE mixed in, and I mix DE in with the their mash. So they dust bathe in it, and get it internally. So far it is working for us.

DE is excellent as a nutritional supplement for humans and all the rest of any animals you may keep.

--Victoria

 

[TheGoodLifeGirl]

Soil, DE and ashes. They love it.

 

[aldarita]

I have two dirt boxes in my run, they are 3' x 3' and 11 " deep (just made them deeper this month because I am in South Central Texas and it is hot already, read in BYC that the deeper the better for the chickens to cool off when dusting) I also added elemental sulfur (which I also researched) and DE to the dirt, my hens love to take baths everyday.
As for how soon to provide them with a dirt box, I added one to each of my brooders when the chicks were only one week old. They love it

however I did not mix the elemental sulfur and DE yet, just dirt and sand which I baked in the oven for one hour. I decided to add the dirt box to the brooders when I saw one of my baby chicks dustbathing with wood shavings.

 

[agessner]

Why use peat?

Why coarse sand instead of play sand?

 

[allieszoo]

I have just been letting mine dust bathe where ever they like, they have DE in their pine shavings in the coop and there is DE in the run as well.

They are kept in the run half the time and out in the yard the other half. They have a dirt pile on the side of my shop they like to dust bathe in and there is a spot in their run they have dug up for dust bathing.

But now I am confused am I supposed to be offering a box with sand/DE/etc in the run to them?

 

[aldarita]

Even if your chickens already have a spot in their run where they can bathe for half a day, I would make them a deep box and mix sand with dirt and some elemental sulfur and DE. I read from some reputable chickeners that this mix helps keep the external parasites away so I think it is a good way to prevent having parasites problems.

 

[Peepers23]

There are several forms of DE. The pool type is dangerous for use by people or animals. Food grade DE is the type pet owners use.

 

[TheEggCollecter]

Gardening soil, DE, peat moss, and ashes

 

[wermnmnmnm]

OK friends... I am getting the coop outside this week. I have an elevated run and want to know if the spot under the coop would be a good spot for a dust bath area. I figured it would not get a lot of rain and I was wondering if the chickies poop a lot in their dust bath area... If I could make that an area with less poop, that would be a bonus, since it is tricky to get to. Any thoughts? I only have 4 Chickens.

 

[Greg M]

I have a dust bath in a tub with sand and ashes so far and they never poo in the dust bath. And when it is in use, there's typically 2 or 3 in it at the same time. They also have a spot outside the coop under my boat which has dust, sand, and asphalt particles in it; all 6 will bath together there. Kind of fun to watch.