Spiral Leg Bands

[Jean]

Does anyone out there use spiral leg bands on their chickens?  I am using a size 12 on my 16 week old birds and I am noticing that they look a little snug on the cockerels.  Is a size 14 better for the Ameraucana roos?

I am also  thinking of getting a toe punch.  How hard is it to do on the chicks and do I need any silver nitrate stick?

Thanks,

Jean

[Guest]

I can\'t comment on the sizes as we don\'t use them, but the spiral ones I have seen were plastic, and i believe that was their purpose to stretch as the bird grew??
Anyhow before investing much $$ you might want to concider a more perminate and unique identification.
Here in NY they will still accept our bands as long as the are \"perminant\" and uniquely numberd.
(we use numbers wing bands with the farm name on the back, others just use numberd ones and still others leg bands, but the kind that seal on so as to not be easily removed)
with all the identification and farm registery etc it might be wise to al east give them a run for their money.
the state vet feels that as long as we can claim and prove that we do identify each individual bird uniquely, then we will be expemt form the nasis registry, (but that too is just her opinion), I think eventually we are all gonna get hit with it!

[John]

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http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=123