Chicken Behavior

When people observe dust bathing for the first time, they often think their chickens are dying of some terrible disease! Chickens dust bathing Dust bathing behavior looks quite odd. When chickens dust bathe, they lie down in the dirt, scratch it onto their backs, roll in it, rub their necks in it, and shuffle it under their feathers. Dust bathing activity frequently leaves hollows in the ground that look like miniature moon craters. The chickens usually have a favorite spot to dust bathe that they will come back to again and again.

Dust bathing is a chicken's natural defense against mites. Mites usually live in the crevices by the base of a chickens feathers. When a chicken takes a dust bath, the crevices fill up with dirt and the mites suffocate and die.