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pinkkat

Dust baths

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Hi, I'm a newbie to this forum and to chickens in general - I get my three ex-battery girls on saturday. Hurrah, I can't wait! :D I've found lots of great advice on here, but I was wondering, is it best to give them a dust bath in their run, do they tend to use it every day? They will be on wood/bark chips in a covered run. Only everyone seems to say they scatter the stuff everywhere and I don't want their grub and glug getting full of sand.

 

Any advice is appreciated - I am going to be one of those over-anxious new Mums!

 

Cheers

 

Kath

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Hi Kath and welcome to the forum.

 

Good luck on Saturday with the new arrivals. If they are going to be in the run permanently then yes I would provide a dust bath. I went away for 4 days and forgot to put one in the run, came back to a scratched up lawn turned into a dust bath....!! Mine freerange now that they've settled in and they make their own dust baths round the garden. Got about 4 or 5 favourite sites dotted around the garden now.

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When we 1st got our girls we bought a cheap cat litter tray and filled it with play sand. You could get the same or something similar and fill it with play sand or compost or dirt or a mixture of all. You could also mix in a bit of red mite powder and diatom to ensure when they are dustbathing they get rid of any beasties too :)

 

Now our girls dont use the tray and make their own baths around the garden borders.

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I've never bothered to make a dust bath - the girls make their own wherever they feel so inclined. It seems to work for them!

 

All the very best

 

Ditto.

 

Last year I made them beautiful dust baths with a mixture of sand and compost.

 

They turned their noses up at them and made their own scruffy affairs in the soil.

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