I know what you’re all going to say, and you’re right, we probably do have the most spoilt chickens on the planet.
They’re fed the best food we can afford to give them, from whole heads of cabbage to sourdough pancakes to oven roasted tuna. And because we’re running a chicken spa, they also get a custom dust bath every couple of days.
With the recent wet weather, it’s been hard for the girls to find a spot in the chook dome to take their dust baths – an essential grooming process, necessary to keep them clean and parasite-free. So…we’ve half-filled an old recycling bin with carefully sifted dry dirt, and this goes into their coop every afternoon for an hour or two.
It’s hysterically funny to watch them – they line up and take turns in the tub, rolling around in the dirt and flicking it under their feathers to clean them. They end up coated in a fine sheen, which makes them look as if they’ve been dusted in talcum powder.
Despite being brutally windy yesterday, the sun was quite bright, and I managed to record this clip of Francesca undertaking her daily ablutions. I thought you might enjoy a glimpse into poultry preening…
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