2 Weird Things All Chickens Do

today I'm gonna talk about two weird things all chickens do let's go welcome to Becky's homestead [Music] sometimes we see chickens do these strange little things and we're like little net for well a dust bath is one of those strange little things all chickens do a dust bath and they start when they're teeny weeny little chicks you'll see I'm doing a dust bath and it's so funny so I'm gonna describe what that is it is when they get in a hole they like turn on their side and they like flap their wings and move their feet at the same time and they're just like shoveling dirt like up to the side of their body and flapping as they're going so the dirt works its way through those feathers all the way to their skin in their body and they will all do it they don't do it every single day but let's just say they'll do it two or three times a week two times probably a minimum they'll be doing it every week and so it's very very important for you to first of all recognize what your chickens do but also if you keep your chickens in a small coop all the time because you might work full-time or you have a lot of predators in your area and to keep them safe you have to keep them in the coop all the time if you're in that situation you're gonna have to provide a dust bath for them if they free-range they will find it on their own my chickens love to come over here of course they seem to really love my garden I put some ashes in there after I burned a fire and kind of mixed it in and it's been kind of composting and of course they have to love the garden right also they'll do it on the ground they'll find a good spot and again perfect choice they do it under the little archway where people walk through so you got to be careful if you step in one of those chicken craters that's what we call them you could literally break your ankle or stumble and fall that's how deep they are it's like a little chicken crater hole so you do have to be careful if you are free-ranging your chickens gonna watch out for those chicken craters but if you're don't have that and you do have to keep them in a smaller coop and it doesn't have a stand floor you can buy one of these little tubs at like I would say Lowe's tractor supply whatever it doesn't have to be that deep but it does have to be plenty big so it's bigger than a dishpan an old-fashioned dish pan it has to be plenty big for the chicken to lay in there and turn on its side so and then what you can do is just get a shovel and just shovel you know a good three inches of dirt in there or sand and then you can just put that in the chicken coop and the chicken will get in there and do its dust bath so I've noticed that if you provide chickens with everything they need that makes them happy and healthy that's exactly what you'll get happy healthy chickens and they don't need a lot they just need a few things and they're very specific but if you do supply those to the chickens they will just be the happiest little birds in the world and they will lay lots of eggs for you and all will go well in chicken town nobody knows exactly why chickens do a dust bath but there's something in nature that just calls them to do that and what I think is you know when they don't have anybody to take care of them it possibly could just get some of the oil off their feathers and also possibly keep mites and lice off the birds I just think that's a possibility of why they do it it certainly has something to do with you know I'm conditioning those feathers and their skin under there so I mean we don't know why but for whatever reason they have to do that they like to do that and they need to do that the second weird thing chickens do is called molting what molting is exactly is when the feathers on your chicken fall out old feathers fall out and then little new feathers will start growing and a lot of times when this happens people will be like oh no like what's wrong with my chicken it's losing all its feathers it doesn't look good and they all write to me in a panic you know cuz they're just so worried something's wrong well the thing is molting is perfectly natural all chickens do it and although it looks a little you know dramatic and a little scary you don't have to worry about it those chickens who look like a hot mess they will just have feathers everywhere they'll be missing a big patch here and it's just sometimes one chicken will lose more than the other so that want to look more bald and it's just crazy time chickens usually molt in late fall which also is a little worrisome sometimes because you're thinking now's the time they need all their feathers and they're all their feathers are falling out and so you're like a little worried they're gonna be cold or whatever but that's just the way it is and that's just the way it happens so you just go with nature just go with the flow don't fight it and the thing is all the feathers fall it's not like it's not a bald chicken so don't get the wrong picture it's not like every single feather falls out and is just skin it's a bald chicken it's not quite that dramatic but you will look around and there will be feathers everywhere so it is like wow but really chickens have so many feathers on their body they can lose quite a few and it'll look very dramatic but they'll still have some feathers on them and it's a big ordeal because even the big big long feathers that cover the outside of the chicken will fall out and that takes a long time to grow a whole new big long feather so it takes like three weeks to a month for all that to grow back I do want to say that chicken have two kinds of feathers they have the outside feathers which are the big feathers that we see that are colored and then under that they have like we like weave joke around and call them the bloomers they have the little tiny downy feathers which are white and that keeps them warm so they're like first all little white downy feathers and then big outside protective feathers so there's two kinds there just so you know that about the chicken and you'll see both fall out when it's time to molt and then you'll just be like oh I know what's going on now and you won't be worried about it when it looks you know a little worrisome or when the bigger feathers fall out you know some of those bigger feathers that's what makes them look more naked but don't worry because that is part of molting those big long feathers will fall out and then they have to grow more feathers in new fresh fluffy beautiful feathers the thing you have to realize is feathers are mostly protein mostly protein so you definitely have to feed your chickens high animal protein at the time when they're molting they're using so much nutrition in so much energy to grow in all those big feathers that they will not lay eggs at that time your hens won't so just make sure so they'll have a they'll have an interruption in their egg-laying while they're molting just make sure that you give them plenty of animal protein in their diet so you can literally add lots of mealworms every single day like tuna fish sardines you know meat from the table scraps in the house you can even buy like cans high-quality though canned dog food or cat food just they need meat that's what they need and of course in the fall late fall at the time they are molting there's a lot of times there's not a lot of bugs around for them to get on their own so that's why you have to make sure you add that to their diet and just be patient you know it probably takes I want to say you know three weeks to a month they'll be like Oh poofy and beautiful and you'll just be like so happy how gorgeous means shiny they look [Music] if you want to learn more about chickens and what it takes to provide good care for them so they'll a lots of eggs for you I cover housing food care breathe just all kinds of stuff you need to know about chickens I wrote a little book and I sell it on my website you can click the link in the description and buy it today

Channel: Becky's Homestead

Views: 88,582

Rating: 4.9063497 out of 5

Keywords: backyard chickens, raising chickens, raising chickens for eggs

Id: qc-Ef75TAP8

Length: 10min 5sec (605 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 03 2019