The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching
Leg Bands vs. Wing Bands
Beth C:
I\'m bumping this back up, because I have yet to find a form of ID I like for growing birds.
Toe-punching will identify a group of birds (pen 1, pen 2) but not individual birds.
I like the butt-end aluminum bands on adults, but they can\'t be applied until the bird is nearly grown.
The NPIP bands break if you look at them - mine were done last month and at least 1/4 have already come off. Plus I test in the fall, so by that point they\'re old enough for permanent bands anyway.
Bandettes break or pull off, and last year the numbers rubbed off of ALL of them in just a few months.
Zip ties work for small hatches but with large numbers it\'s too easy to miss one and have it grow into the leg - not pretty.
Last year I spent a lot of time tattooing, thinking that would solve the problem once and for all, but over time some of the tattoos became unreadable. (Maybe the pen type tattoo kit would work better than the pliers?)
At the moment I\'m writing numbers on the wing-web with a sharpie, but that doesn\'t seem practical for very long.
That brings me to once again considering wing bands, since they can be applied to day-old chicks and supposedly stay on for life. Patty, you mentioned you had a problem with snagging - just wanted to clarify, were those wing bands or wing badges? The badges look really cumbersome, but the bands stick out, too. Has anyone else used wing bands? Do they stay on; do they break; do they get pulled out?
Any other suggestions on how to permanently ID a growing bird? (Or at least last long enough to get a butt-end band on it.)
dak:
I toe punch at hatch. Especially those Lav/SB splits I don\'t want to lose track of.
My bandettes have come of at an alarming rate, hate\'em.
I have been using wingbands on my LF Cochins without any issues, though it is a hassle to pick up a bird to identify it. I am considering it with my Ameraucanas and then using the colored spiral band for easy distance ID.
I like using the same color spiral as the color food color I put in the pullet\'s vent to mark her egg when I\'m trying to figure out who is laying what. ie. green band, green food color.
Beth C:
Do they stay on pretty well? I loathe the bandettes, although I may continue to use them as a secondary form of ID. I really like the butt-end bands, but by the time they\'re old enough to wear them half the birds have lost their identity along the way.
I toe punch to identify offspring from a specific breeding, but I\'d like to be able to track an individual as it grows. Michael had suggested photographing chicks, wheatens in particular, weekly as they grow. He said that, w/in a line, you start to see the same pattern repeat. I tried last year, but by the time they were 3 months old the numbers had rubbed off the crummy bandettes, at least the ones that stayed on.
Do you use the food color with your Ameraucanas? I tried last year, but it didn\'t show up. Do you use regular food color or the paste type they use for icing? That would make my life easier. I don\'t have enough breeding cages to keep everyone separate, so I have a group of hens in a run with one cock, and rotate them in & out of cages to collect & mark eggs. Which means I can only ID half my eggs on any given day.
Sharon Yorks:
I\'m not sure if anyone else uses these, but here is a link to an ad on Ebay that is for little colored rubber bands. I use size 4 for when they first hatch, then I switch to size 5 when they are 10-14 days old. I really like them. It\'s just a temporary method for when they are real young. I am planning to get bigger sizes to see how well it works as they get bigger. Just another idea to ponder that is softer and more flexible than zip ties. All 6 colors come in one bag. They sell 100 bands for $7 no shipping. And you can reuse them. They stretch easy when trying to put them on and take them off.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-LEG-BANDS-CHICK-POULTRY-BIRD-QUAIL-EGG-SMALL-SIZE-5-/320365726791?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4a97490c47
HarryS:
Well to set your mind at ease. The aluminum wing bands stay on the best. Even when the chickens are ran thru the pickers at the slaughter plants very few are pulled off, they have to be cut off the wing to remove them.
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