There are several options.

1) Leave them alone.

2) Give them a dust bath, such as a pile of sand, maybe with a little diatomacious earth in it to help eliminate lice, etc.

3) Power wash them. Maybe take them to a coin operated car wash.

4) Machine wash, regular cycle, tumble dry on low heat.

5) Leave them alone. They may look drab because they need to molt, rather than because they're dirty.

Dan

You'll find some good discussions on chickens on the "farm life" forum. One member, Velvet Sparrow, has a web page that discusses, among other things, bathing chickens:

http://home.earthlink.net/~velvetsparrow/VSChick.htm

I have two silkies in my urban garden and find that all the delicious melons rinds and fresh summer fruit makes for filthy silkies! For that sticky mess, some success can be had with a warm wet washcloth and some elbow grease. However, a sand pit under a large shrub or in their run will allow them to groom themselves. Good luck!

you get a 5 gal bucket fill 1/2 full of water an put a bottel of witch hasel dip the chicken an he will stand an let you rub after few time he will like it

140° water with a small squirt of dish soap for 60 seconds. The dirt comes off with the feathers.

Dan

140 degrees is too hot. You get in 140 degrees naked and see what it feels like first.

Yikes! Please not 140 - You'll blanch your babies!

Like the power wash-car wash idea, and the machine wash suggestion,

( everybody knows that chickens are dry clean only),

the 140 degree water was sarcastic, and was actually talking about how you clean and de-feather a chicken carcass.

Gee, we always add vegetables when bathing our chickens. Sometimes noodles, too.

hmmm

Is this the sequel to "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Kat

Bathing chickens? The last four answers are on the money. Realisticly, adding mature stock from outside sources is just poor management. The risk of importing pests and/or diseases greatly outweighs any benefits from usually past prime of production birds. I've scored various livestock for free off the feedstore bulletin board over the years- tasty indeed!

can you power wash them?

This is how my chicken gets a bath...

Here is a link that might be useful: Mr. Joy gets a bath

I laughed until the tears ran when I read this post.

I realize that in today's world that homsteading is a misnomer but even so, when would I have time to bath my chickens. :o)

RW

Silkies are not production birds, so they aren't past prime until they are dead.

LOL, some of those answers were great! :)

dry clean only? LOL

came here looking for how to give my chicken a bath because a snake had gotten into our coop and crushed all the eggs he/she didn't eat and now my hens are covered in crusty, sticky, smelly, egg yolk-"re-homed" the snake and now to clean my birds. BTW the suggestions were fabulous! and funny and brightened my day :) I olny use the "spa treatment" (140 rinse then a veggie and mineral soak) for our Roosters, but I agree it is very efficient and tasty. I guess I'll go look on a show site to see how to actually bath my birds. Thanks for the laugh.