Dust bathing is one of the most highly motivated natural behaviors in chickens — its denial in barren cage systems is a major welfare deficit that substrates and enriched housing can address.
Dust bathing is so strongly motivated in chickens that hens will perform it in the air if no substrate is available — a poignant indicator of frustration at an unmet behavioral need. The welfare science here is robust: substrate provision is low-cost, well-understood, and dramatically improves behavioral welfare. The barrier to universal provision has been the battery cage system, now banned in the EU, and the slow pace of cage-free transition in other markets. But even in cage-free systems, substrate quality and accessibility matter — dust baths must be available, accessible, and maintained to provide the welfare benefit the behavior requires.