Tracking chicks?

[KalJen Farm]

Hi everyone. I am looking for advice on the best way to keep track of chicks. I am thinking about toe punching, but i am not sure how it works in relationship to my breeding pairs and such. I have about four single pairs of various blue, black, splash combos. And a larger pen of black pullets and hens with a splash male. Any info on how everyone uses the toe punching method in relationship to their parent stock. I was something that i can look down in a group of mixed 6 month olds and say. "yea, thats crossed with hen ___ with male ___. Any advice. Picture examples would be great, im a visual person. (btw, i will be moving these males around all season, so they are not gona stay all season long in the pairs they are in now)

[Jean]

Toe punching is what most people use, but the drawback is that the holes can close up sometimes.  Here is a chart that you can use.

I am thinking of trying some wing bands next year.

[Don]

Toe punching is limited to 16 designations.   http://www.dominiquechicken.com/Toe_Punch_Chart.html
Records are really important especially if you start switching matings around, memory is not a good option.  And there will be some transition time when you'll not be sure which male is involved.  MAKE SURE the tab is not still attached and folded under the webbing somewhere. It can flip back in place and you'll never be able to tell it was punched.  Some breeders tear the webbing from the toe punch out.  Check the toe punches for the first few weeks to make sure they are not healing over.  Good luck!

[OldChurchEggery]

I did some toe punching this year and it was pretty difficult on my smaller chicks. The Jersey Giants I toe punched came out nice and clean, but the EEs I hatched for fun were a whole other story. Quite a few of them had holes that grew back together even though I thought I'd gotten rid of all the "hanging chad" part of the punch. Practice makes perfect, though, so hopefully this coming spring will be easier.

[Schroeder]

What is the ideal age to punch (day, week, month) if you have that flexibility.  Is there any problem waiting until the chicks are ready to remove from the brooder before punching?

[Mike Gilbert]

I also toe punch,  but on a limited basis.  It can be very difficult with bantam chicks.   One alternative is to slit the skin about halfway to the foot between the toes instead of toe punching.   I believe it should be done soon after hatching, before they start eating and drinking, otherwise it is easy to forget which chick came from which mating.   And it does not seem to be hard on them when they are first hatched.   

[Sharon Yorks]

I use an alternative method to toe punching. It’s more expensive, but reusable. I use colored “poultry” rubber bands for their first month, then I go to leg Bandettes (pictures below). The rubber bands come in a pack of 100 for $7 (free shipping) and have 6 different colors in the one package…15-18 of each color. I buy three sizes which gets me through their first month, and like I said, they are reusable.

Age 1-10 days-old, size 4     (Be sure to check these and don't forget - they grow out of them fast)
Age 11-20 days-old, size 5
Age 21-30 days-old, size 6

At a month old, I switch to colored Bandettes that I buy at Twin City Poultry. At a month old, I put on size 7, then switch to size 9. I can’t remember at what exact age I switched sizes, but sometime around 3-4 months old, I think. My 8 month-old birds are still in size 9. At some point you will have to move to size 11 once they reach adults, but that really varies on each bird. The Bandettes come in the same six colors as the rubber bands, with the exception of purple rubber bands having to be replaced by white Bandettes. The Bandettes are more expensive. The boxes of 25 (one color per box) is $5.65 for size 7 – and $6.75 for size 9. Each band is numbered, and you can chose which sets of numbers: 1-25, 26-50, 51-75, 76-100 which is helpful if you have multiple generations of the same line or are just in need of more bands for more pens. The picture below shows 4 colors of Bandettes, but there are 6.

I’m not sure how many pens you’ll need to keep track of, but if you like this idea and want to give it a try, I can help you set up your pens to where it makes more sense and help you get a mental picture of who gets which color. Below is an example of how I will be using them for 2013. I will have 7 breeding pens, using 5 roosters. Each of my breeding pens has full hatch-mate females, so there is no need for me to keep track of each female in any particular pen unless I wanted to for a specific reason. “I” place the colors according to the names of the females, (which helps me mentally remember which color goes with who without looking it up) – (too hard to explain) but you could just use the number of the pen, such as:

Pen #1 blue - #2 green - #3 red - #4 orange - #5 yellow - #6 purple/white

I place all of my bands on their right legs, but since I have 7 pens, I also plan to use the other leg which would allow a person to go up to 12 pens. My blue male, Goliath, will be servicing 2 pens. One of his pens will have the blue band on the right leg and the 7th pen will have the blue band on the left leg. When choosing one color for two pens with the same male, it may be easier to remember if you use the same color. It's just another mental picture that helps me.

I hope I didn’t confuse you. It seems easy for me because I’ve put a lot of thought into this and I have a mental picture of my birds having specific colors so I actually AM able to do what you said…walk out into a group of birds and know who is out of which parents. Plus, the option for multiple numbering helps, too, and is much easier to read than toe punching when their feet are muddy. But the downside is it’s much more expensive. I personally think it’s worth it.

Again, If this is something you are interested in and would like help figuring it out and how it could work with your pens, I would be happy to help you set it up where it would make sense to you.

[Birdcrazy]

Sharon, I use the same system as you do with banding my chicks (rubber bands, colored spiral bands then colored number bands). I added a twist last year on one of my Blue/Black breeding pens. One pullet was laying an extra large egg and another was laying an egg with extra blue egg color. So from that breeding pen I have chicks (now adults) with 3 different color of bands.

[Sharon Yorks]

Thank Goodness! I'm glad someone else sees a method to my madness and understands what I'm doing. I was wondering if everyone looking at my post reply was thinking, "This woman is weird." The idea (though it may vary some) really does work great, doesn't it? Do you have made-up reasons why certain pens get certain colors, like:

Black/Black pen - gold gene - warm colors - yellow band
Blue/Blue pen - silver gene - cool colors - blue band
Black/Blue pen - mix of yellow and blue make green band
Or blacks with most green sheen gets green band
Splash females - white bands (even if they are bred to blacks and all chicks are blue)

There are all kinds of silly mental ideas a person can come up with to fit a certain pen with a certain color, and once you've get locked into one, it makes it so easy to remember who they all are when they are all running together as youngsters.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone :-)

[Birdcrazy]

When my chicks reach adulthood and I have culled to keepers for my breeding pens, I leave a colored spiral band on the corresponding leg to designate what breeding pen they came from. Then on the other leg I put a numbered colored band. I make this a single color for the year (for all my breeds of birds). Example White designates 2012, Blue 2011, Red 2010 etc. That way I can look in my breeding pens and see if some of my older breeders may need to be considered for replacement. I rarely keep breeders past 4 years of age. Sorry to say there is no method of madness to the selection of the colored spiral band to designate which breeding pen the bird comes from-I keep a small notebook to notate this along with remarks of chicks I have culled from that pen and the reason why I culled them. This helps me to determine if I may need to break up a breeding pen for better results the next year. This works great unless the bird slips a band, but at least with my notebook I can determine the breeding pen again from the number band and put back on the colored spiral band. If they lose the number band, I still know the breeding pen from the spiral band. Looking at the other hens/pullets in the breeding pen and my notebook I can usually determine what the number and color of the missing numbered band. I usually only have one cock or cockerel in a breeding pen so there is no question to band again from my notebook. If I have a bird that is one of my favorites or done well at a show it is recorded in my notebook, but it naturally tends for my to know my favorites and look for them in the breeding pens without having to look them up in my notebook. Banding is not cheap!!!!!! I usually keep two to three hundred dollars worth on hand for a breeding season. Now with the price of feed, that doesn't seem as bad, and they are reusable.

[KalJen Farm]

Thanks for al the info everyone. This will definatly help. now to dig that incubatorr out.

[Tailfeathers]

I use toe-punching and have no problems with it.  I prefer it over other methods.  If you do a search on the Forum for "toe punching", you should find a post that Paul Smith has made a couple of times that detail exactly how to go about it.

Suffice it for now to say that you first have to decide what your breeding plan will consist of.  For example, my breeding plans consist of a specific male over specific female(s).  The male would have a specific # and the female(s) would have a specific # but different that the male's to prevent brother/sister mating.  Here's a quick example:

PEN #2
#11 Wheaten Rooster x #13 Wheaten hen   (100% W offspring)

PEN #11
#11 Wheaten Rooster x #10 Blue Wheaten hens (50/50 W/BW offspring)

PEN #12
#14 Blue Wheaten Rooster x #15 Blue Wheaten hens   (50% BW, 25% W, 25% SW)

PEN #13
#14 Blue Wheaten Rooster x #6 Wheaten hens   (50/50 W/BW)

The above example show the # of the male and females use that make up the specific breeding pen.  The pen is given a # and then that # is toe-punched on the chicks.  Note that in the above example, where it says "hens" vice "hen", all the hens are of the same number - meaning they are full blood sisters from the same breeding pen the previous year.

I typically have to toe-punch my chicks immediately upon taking them out of the incubator as I normally have several pens hatching at once.  This requires me to keep the eggs separate in the incubator.  Each egg is marked with the Pen # as it is collected from that pen.  I had a metal separate made for my incubator trays (Sportsman 1520) but I've heard of others who used cheap nylon mesh bags obtained from a Dollar Store or such.

The above method allows me to linebreed and keeping meticulous records has enabled me to make, I believe, significant progress with my birds.

Granted, the toe-punch method outlined above does limit one to 16 pens (Zero being counted as 0 or 16) but if there's anyone that needs more than 16 pens of one variety, they're probably a whole lot better breeder than me and they've got a lot more money/facilities/time than I have!  Paul Smith does talk about a method he uses to add more than 16 pen #'s.  I started with 15 pens and have been trying to get down to just 2.  I'm currently at four now.

The reason I prefer toe-punching over bands and such is because I've experienced bands soming off (I have NO idea how that happens!) and I've experienced the numbers wearing off the band.  Either of which basically relegates the bird as useless for breeding.  At least where linebreeding and not flock breeding is concerned.  It is imperative that each parent is absolutely identified and thus subsequently each chick is absolultely recorded according to each parentage.  Should a chick, for example, escape out of its little separator, or for some other reason not be able to be absolutely identified by which egg (with corresponding pen # on it) it came from, it is then left unpunched and sold or kept for the EE pen or what-have-you but it is NOT used in subsequent breeding.

I hope this helps as well.

God Bless,

[Carrie Gildersleeve]

Has anybody tried the E-Z elastic bands for their chicks? It seems they only go up to a size 9, so then you would have to switch to bandettes? Sharon, I really like your method for tracking chicks, is your offer to help with setting up pens still open? 

[Sharon Yorks]

Sure! I'd be happy to help