How To Set Up A Dust Bath For Chickens

What is a Chicken Grit Bath?

If you lot've always stopped to lookout your lawn chickens, you will notice that they will often coat their feathers in dust and dirt, and they appear to delight in doing and so. Your first instinct might exist 'Nooooo! You are getting then muddied (and creating a huge mess);' All the same as I volition explain, this chicken behaviour is not just enjoyable for them, information technology is your chickens 'fashion of keeping themselves clean.

While this bathing method seems unconventional to u.s., it is quite useful and constructive. The dust not simply helps to remove excess oil, it also makes their feathers a less desirable home for parasites such as lice and mites to thrive on.

This innate behaviour is non exclusive to chickens. Many other birds and also mammals partake in dust bathing to keep fresh and clean.

How chickens bathe in grit

Not only do chickens love a good grit bath, but they besides love to do it with the residuum of the flock. If ane hen starts scratching, wriggling and flapping in the dirt, she will almost likely be quickly joined by other hens in the bathing session. Non but do they bathe for hygiene, just information technology'due south besides a corking time to socialise!

Chickens will scratch out a dusty or dirty identify in either the garden or what once was your lawn until they have an indentation that is at to the lowest degree their trunk size. Once they are happy with their bath, they will hunker down into the grit and scratch at the soil and flap their wings. You will fifty-fifty encounter them wiggle in the dirt as they endeavour to get a good thorough make clean in and among their fluffed up feathers.

Once satisfied they will commencement preening their feathers using their beak, to remove backlog dust and dirt. They will smooth the oil secreted from a gland at the base of their tail over their feathers and remove loose feathers.

Grit Bath and Parasites

Unfortunately, backyard chickens and their coop are highly susceptible to both lice and mites. Not only can these parasites crusade your feathered friends great discomfort, they can also be the source of malnutrition and illness.

Dust helps to command parasites by making a chicken's body less habitable.

As a backyard craven possessor, information technology is crucial to encourage dust bathing equally part of your coop management and hygiene programme.

If you lot are concerned most parasites, read upwardly up the symptoms of parasites

Chickens are well and truly able to make their own dust bath. They dear making their dust bath in the chicken run. However, yous can add together a few things to the bath that will assist go on parasites at bay and ensure a thorough clean.

Also, if you would prefer that they didn't scratch in and effectually your garden, you can make a dust bathroom for your lawn chickens. Using a wading puddle, an old crate or trough, you can create a bath of their dreams.

Making a grit bath in the coop can also be a good idea if you lot are in an avian influenza area or y'all are having lots of rainy conditions which makes it difficult for your chickens to bathe.

Chicken Dust Bath Recipe

1. Dig a hole approx. 60cm in diameter and approx. 20cm in depth. Alternatively, make a raised frame out of wood, as you would for a sand pit. You can go far wider if you wish and insert a plastic childs wading pool to hold you grit bath mixture. If you use the wading pool thought it also makes it easy to change empty and modify the dust bathroom when required.
2. Add together some fine dirt or sand

   For a thorough make clean, chickens require pulverisation-similar dirt to make it and among their feathers. The fine grit is easy to scratch upwards and fluff under their wings

3. Add Diatomaceous Earth

   Pronounced DIE-A-TOE-MAY-SHUS; Diatomaceous World adds an extra layer of protection against lice and mites. This well-known insecticide is entirely natural, made from fossilised remains of algae. A scattering in the dust bath is plenty.

   

4. Add together forest ash to the dust bathroom Woods ash or ash from a fireplace tin be a good contribution to your chicken's dust bathroom, adding vitamins and further deterring pests. The charcoal in the ash helps to blot toxins on their feathers. Note: if using ash from a fire exist certain that it does not contain whatever lighter fluid or chemicals.
5. Add some fragrant herbs

   Herbs such every bit lavender, mint and rosemary not only make your chickens odour lovely, they also comprise natural insecticides. Simply sprinkle stale herbs where your chickens bathe.

6. Comprehend the bath

   A dust bathroom works best when the dust is bone-dry, and is non clumping. Adding an umbrella, tent or tarp over the dust bath when it is raining volition ensure your hens tin get dirty when they need to.

Other related manufactures:

Why exercise chickens scratch the ground?

What is a craven run?

Chicken Coop Lice and Mite Treatment

Related Products

David Gray's Poultry Dust

Source: https://www.dineachook.com.au/blog/what-is-a-chicken-dust-bath-easy-steps-to-make-one/

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