How to Bathe and Groom Backyard Chickens

Bathing and grooming your backyard chickens may not be something you have thought about. After all, chickens are pretty low maintenance pets. And most of the time your backyard chickens will get along fine grooming their feathers and enjoying a dust bath in their pen or your backyard.

But there are occasions when you need to give your chickens a bath as part of their regular health routine. And if you plan to enter your chickens in an agricultural or chicken show, they will need to be groomed to show standard.

Health checks

As a responsible backyard chicken owner, you should be giving your chickens regular health checks. It’s a good idea to handle your chickens regularly, so they get used to the feeling of being picked up and examined. This will make checks and grooming much easier and less stressful for the chickens. The easiest way to catch a chicken is to have a good relationship with it before you even try to pick it up. Visit your chickens regularly, talk to them, give them treats and spend time watching and interacting with them.

When it’s time to catch your chicken, do not chase it! Calmly and firmly grasp the chicken with both hands over her back and sides, so her wings are firmly held, and she can’t flap in alarm. Hold her close to your body and speak soothingly to her while you check her over. Some chickens enjoy having their feathers gently stroked. Just stay calm and she will too.

Regular grooming of your backyard chickens includes a number of tasks that should become part of your routine. This includes daily assessments of their general wellbeing: are they eating well, are their combs and crops a good color and healthy? Watch to see how your chickens interact and look out for signs of bullying or feather pulling.

Every week or two it’s a good idea to have a good look at each of your flock to check for signs of parasites or illness. It’s also a good opportunity to clean the coop, feeders, and waterers and remove soiled bedding. This will also help keep your chickens clean and healthy.

Twice a year (spring and autumn are good times) you can give your chicken coop a thorough cleanout, removing all the bedding and scrubbing the floor, walls, and nest boxes. Your chickens will love rearranging their clean straw and pecking through it for seed heads.

Grooming chickens

Unless you’re showing your chickens, they don’t need any special treatment beyond some basic grooming.

Nail clipping

If your chickens free-range, they may not need their nails clipped. But keep an eye on your chickens’ nails during their weekly checks. If they are growing too long simply use a dog nail clipper or toenail clipper and nip the ends off the nails. Don’t cut too far or you’ll cut the quick, and it will bleed.

Wing clipping

You may want to clip your chickens’ wings, so they can’t fly out of their designated area, whether it’s their coop or your backyard. You can use ordinary household scissors to clip across the base of one wing, so the chicken won’t be stable enough to fly. This is best done as a two-person job with one holding the chicken and the other gently clipping the ends of the feathers. You’ll need to clip after each molting season.

Beak clipping

Beak clipping shouldn’t be necessary unless there is bullying happening in your flock and you want to minimize the potential damage. But sometimes a chicken’s beak can grow too long and curved, and clipping the end will help it eat better. Note this is not the same as debeaking, it’s just like clipping your fingernails and doesn’t hurt the chicken.

As with your chicken’s nails, you can use a toenail clipper to nip off the point of the beak (don’t use a cat or dog clipper as this will split the chicken’s beak down the middle). Make a diagonal nip on each side of the beak, so you end up with a point and then round off with a nail file.

Bathing chickens

Before you start to bathe your chickens, be prepared! Get everything ready, expect to get wet, and see if you can get a friendly helper.

You need:

• A couple of large tubs, laundry or Rubbermaid tubs. A bucket isn’t big or stable enough to use as a chicken bath.
• Lots of towels, including one for each human involved in the process.
• Some gentle pet or baby shampoo — we got the Green Goo poultry shampoo in our Henny and Roo monthly box, and it works great!
• A rinsing cup or jug.
• Rubber gloves if your chicken is very dirty and there’s a lot of chicken poop.
• A hairdryer (if the weather is cold or if you are preparing for a show)
• A sense of humor.

Process

• Fill each tub with warm water and put a towel or rubber mat on the bottom of each tub, so your chicken doesn’t slip. You can swirl a little shampoo into the water or apply directly to your chicken once she has soaked in the tub for a couple of minutes.
• Gently but firmly pick your chicken up and holding her wings close to her body, dunk her in the tub, keeping her head above the water. She’s likely to flap and squawk at first but will calm down and may even relax and go to sleep in the warm water. Keep speaking soothingly to your chicken to reassure her.
• Apply a little shampoo and work into the dirty areas. If her feet and nails are very dirty, you can use an old nail brush or scrubbing brush to give her a bit of a pedicure.

• Once your chicken is clean, you can dunk her in the rinsing tub. Use the cup to pour clean, warm water over your chicken, avoiding her head.
• Wrap your chicken in a clean towel and pat her to dry her feathers as much as you can. If the weather is cold, you can use a hairdryer on a low setting.

• You can rub Vaseline into her feet, legs, comb, and wattles to moisturize and protect against parasites.

You can use the same process to break broody chickens. Just use cold water and no soap. Dip the broody chicken in the water so that her chest and vent are covered, and this will lower her body temperature, which is the trigger for broodiness. A thirty-second dip should do it.

Stay calm and handle your chickens gently, and grooming and bathing can be enjoyable for you and your flock.

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Sources:

• https://www.communitychickens.com/chicken-bath-101/
• https://www.google.com/search?q=How+to+Bathe+and+Groom+Backyard+Chickens&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
• https://the-chicken-chick.com/how-to-give-chicken-bath/