Dust bathing is one of the most strongly motivated behavioral needs in hens. Providing suitable substrate is a welfare requirement that even enriched cage systems struggle to meet adequately.
Dust bathing is one of the most clearly documented and strongly motivated behavioral needs in domestic hens, making its provision a welfare priority in any housing system. Hens deprived of suitable dust bathing substrate perform the complete behavioral sequence of scratching, bill-raking, and wing-shaking in the absence of substrate — a behavior that makes the strength and innateness of the motivation unmistakable. Enriched cage systems that provide small dust bathing areas shared among many birds frequently fail to meet the behavioral need due to competition and inadequate substrate quality. Free-range and aviary systems with appropriate litter management provide much better dust bathing opportunity, and this represents one of the most welfare-significant differences between production systems.