When should you start dust bathing?

[Dott2424]

My girls are now 10 weeks old and I am trying to figure out how and when I should give them a dust bath?

 

[donrae]

If they have access to dirt, they're already dust bathing

I never do anything special for this, they just pick a spot in the run and flop around and scratch until it's a shallow depression, shallow but just deep enough to twist an ankle, that is! I do dump my wood ashes in the coop or run during the winter, but otherwise they take care of themselves.

If for some reason your birds don't have access to dirt, you can just use any container bigger than your bird. Litter pans, old tires, dishpans, etc. fill with dirt and put in a dry location.

 

[aatx]

Are they still in a brooder or are they outside? I started bringing in dirt for mine at around 3 weeks old. Just some sand/dirt from the garden. Here's a recent thread on it. I have a video of my chicks on the 3rd page.

 

[Dott2424]

Thanks they have plenty of dirt in the yard.

 

[jondee]

What I noticed with my hand-raised chicks is that they just figured it out by themselves, sometime after they were fully feathered and out in the coop/yard full time. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that the first time I saw one doing it, I thought it was convulsing and dying, lol lol lol. So if yours are already in a place where they have access to dirt, I bet they'll figure it out on their own.

My hen-raised chicks started doing little dust baths much, much earlier, probably because they saw Mom doing it almost from day one.

Joni