Our coop and pen get lots of morning shade, because of the trees and bushes that shield them on that side. But in the early to mid afternoon, when the sun is at its peak, the pen is bathed in sunlight — and heat — thanks to the fact that there is no vegetation directly overhead.
On sunny summer days, I raise an old patio umbrella over the pen at midday, to prevent “the girls” from overheating. They can retreat into the coop if they want to, or rest under the henhouse, which is elevated about a foot off the ground, but they seem to prefer hanging out in the pen during the day . . . if it’s cool enough.
Tuesday was a beautiful late summer day, with full sun and nary a cloud in the sky. So I dutifully trotted out to the pen shortly after noon to crank open the umbrella. But our three hens were not hiding to escape the sun, as they do in extreme heat, until the umbrella pops up. The temperature was only in the mid 70s, and the chickens were sprawled out in the sun, lying in small holes they had dug in the soil of the pen. Using their wings, they flung dirt onto their bodies. Lots of dirt. Enough to create their own personalized dust storms.
The hens ignored me when I showed up, which is highly unusual. Normally sharp-eyed and very attentive, they had a glazed, unfocused look in their eyes, reminiscent of a boozer who has had one too many.
Snow, Nellie and Hope had decided the time was right for a dust bath.
I’m glad I read about this phenomenon before we got chickens back in 2012, because if I had seen it without knowing what was going on, I would have assumed the hens were seriously ill. What else to make of a chicken that’s lying in the dirt, flopping around as if in the throes of a seizure, and doing her best to cover herself with soil?
“Hens adore few things more than settling down in some dust (or almost any fine material) and vigorously pumping their wings in such a way that it flies up through their feathers,” Robert and Hannah Litt explain in A Chicken in Every Yard.
Chickens “hate getting wet, but they sure do love a dust bath,” Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow write in Keeping Chickens For Dummies. “Chickens scratch out a body-sized depression in the soil and lie in it, throwing the soil from the hole into their fluffed-out feathers and then shaking to remove it. They seem very happy when doing this, so it must feel good. In nature, this habit helps to control parasites.”
Very happy indeed. “The girls” looked positively besotted (not to mention dirty) during their dust baths. This must be what it would be like to get drunk without spending any money on booze, or running the risk of a hangover.
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