Dustbathing is one of the strongest motivations in domestic hens, and its deprivation in caged systems causes significant and measurable welfare compromise.
Dustbathing is not a luxury behaviour but a strong, internally motivated need that hens will perform regardless of substrate quality. Vacuum dustbathing on wire cage floors demonstrates the intensity of this motivation and constitutes a welfare failure. Providing suitable dustbathing substrate — sand, peat, or fine litter — even in colony systems dramatically improves behavioural welfare by allowing hens to complete this essential comfort behaviour. Consumer demand for cage-free eggs drives the housing transitions that make dustbathing provision feasible.