© 9/21/20018 Abby Black


Being in the mid-Atlantic South, the topsoil is maayyybee a few inches deep at most, and rest is either clay or sandy clay. The result is that we have to make a manufactured dust bath for the chickens after every rainfall, because what dust we do put down is fairly quickly washed away.


We use bagged organic dirt from the store, and shovel a few gallons into a corner of the run. Then we dump a few handfuls of diatamaceous earth, sweet PDZ, and fresh herbs from the garden. Between wet weather, I rake up the dust they've flung over half the run back into the corner. When it rains, they tend to take their dust baths inside to the deep litter pine shavings, where we've also thrown some sweet PDZ and D.E. Woe to those who dare snatch the eggs during bath time, because the air is full of dust despite the excess ventilation, and the bag that specifically says, "Low Dust Shavings".


We're currently running through all sorts of ideas to make our lives easier so we're not replacing the bath a few times a month. I'll let you know when we find a solution.