Backyard Chickens: The Importance of Dust Baths for Health

One key husbandry issue that is often overlooked with chicken tractors; the importance of dust bathing for avian health. Chickens are birds. And like all birds, they need periodic dust baths to keep their feathers and skin healthy. They do this instinctively and it is fun to watch as it obviously gives them a lot of joy digging around and working it deep into their plumage. Chicken tractors are excellent for running a mini grass forage operation. But with frequent movements around the yard and the fact that turf generally is not dry enough to provide dust on any particular day, they end up digging small holes in a futile attempt to get at the dirt.

What to do? In my case I picked up a cheap cat litter box and filled it about half full with a mixture of dry garden soil, kids play sand and animal food grade diamateous earth (DE). The soil and sand are mixed at roughly 1:1 with two to three cups of DE added in. DE acts as a natural mite and flea killer. We've been lucky in that so far our small flock has not had any parasite issues. But including DE in the dust bath as well as a small dusting in their pine chip bedding acts as a preventative. Its cheap insurance. Just don't over do it in the bedding as it can be a respiratory irritant at high concentration.

The other big consideration is keeping an eye on the weather so that the dust bath doesn't become a mud pit. We've been lucky with this so far, and when rain or snow is predicted I can slide the tray under the coop portion to keep it out of the worst of the weather.

They can really kick up a dust ! It is not unusual for two to try to do this at once.