Yes, chickens really do need a dust bath. Providing a suitable area for dust bathing has several benefits. It helps chickens condition their feathers. It minimize mites and lice. And it gives chickens something pleasurable to do, which helps keep them from pecking each other out of boredom. Plus wallowing in dust can help chickens stay cool in summer.
What You Need
All you need is dirt, or rather clean, loose soil. If you have loamy soil, that’s great. If you have clay soil, you can loosen it up by mixing it with fine construction sand from the hardware store.
Chickens with access to dry soil outdoors will create their own dusting bowls. In a coop with deep litter, chickens will use it to bathe indoors during hot or rainy weather.
To prevent ankle-twisting holes from developing in the yard, you might want to confine the soil to a bin. A kiddy wading pool, or anything of similar shape and size, filled with sand or loose soil works well.
An overhead cover will keep the soil from turning to mud in rainy weather. When the dust bin is outdoors, breezes will whisk away airborne dust kicked up by bathing chickens.
If for some reason you need to situate the bin inside the coop, ventilate the shelter well enough to prevent dust particles from hanging in the air. Also, a bright overhead light will discourage hens from using the bin as a communal nest.
