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.)
To id each individual bird i use a color system. As chicks I use water balloon ends or small zip ties. If I run out of colors. I double color example: Red Red, Orange Yellow, Purple Purple, Blue Blue.
Or I select one color for one leg and another color for the other leg. This way I can have same colored bands on the same foot.
The water-balloon ends have worked well until they get about 4-5 weeks old. Then I have switched to a numbering bandette system.
I had a friend use quick dry JB weld inside the bandettes in between the spirals, to keep them from coming undone. But this is when they have their permanent adult bandettes.