A common welfare concern with broiler chickens is leg abnormalities. However, recent research has shown that allowing broiler chickens to exercise in the form of performing natural behaviour such as perching, walking on inclines and dustbathing can improve a chicken’s ability to walk. The hope is to improve leg condition of broiler chickens by increasing the amount of dustbathing that the perform, and to increase the performance this study examined the preferences that chickens had for certain substrates to use for dustbathing. The dustbathing substrates compared were pine wood shavings, rice hulls, construction grade sand and recycled paper animal bedding. Testing began at one week of age and ended at seven weeks of age, each week four new chickens were tested. Prior to testing, the broilers were housed on wood shavings, but during testing they were not given bedding. During testing each corner of the pen was filled with one of the test substrates. The dustbathing behaviour of the birds was measured by counting the number of vertical wing shakes. Significantly more wing shakes were performed, more visits were made and more time was spent in the sand than the other three substrates. Before dustbathing, the chickens typically ground peck which was perform more frequently and more often in sand. The preference to use sand to dustbathe was observed at one week of age and remained consistent throughout the remainder of the trial. This study found that sand is a very attractive substance for dustbathing and also stimulates dustbathing. The next step is to determine if the provision of sand increases dustbathing to a point that helps to improve the leg condition of broiler chickens.