Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[NanaKat]

Toe punching here...two punches each opening so that there is a V shape instead of a hole that seals up....or scissor snips if you are careful.
Then all saved chicks get the same colored band when culling occurs to mark the year of birth. Then each chick will be given an additional colored band for the sire of the pen.

 

[desertmarcy]

VETRAP or coflex BANDAGING in various colors is awesome from day 1 through maturity...I just cut a quarter inch wide piece about as long as needed and wrap the leg forming a band and fold end part to make a little tag ending...it breathes and expands quite a bit with growth...it stays on great too.

find it at feed store or here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Full-CASE-3...618?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d1acd232

What age are you toe punching? I started toe punching this year and at first I thought the newly hatched chicks were too small and was waiting until they were a week old, but I had more problems with the holes growing back. So I started punching as soon as they came out of the incubator and it has worked better. Even if you see a hole, there a lot of times is a little piece of tissue still attached and it will grow back in so you need to make sure you rub that little circle of tissue completely off. I have not had good luck with vetwrap staying on at all. Maybe it is the brand, I have tried a couple, and some people say some colors work better than others (why would that be?), anyway I have given up on it in favor of different colored zip ties, which have their own problem in that you need to be making sure they don't get too tight, change them often. These also get brittle in our hot climate and break off. I find pieces of them in the pens. I have had to redo some toe punches as well but if the chick gets too big, the baby toe punch will not work and they bleed more and heal slower than newly hatched chicks. What I do now is check them a week after hatch and if the hole looks a little small, I repunch it and make it bigger and that has helped. If the chicks are really tiny, I do wait a few days after hatch because the punch sometimes cuts the edge of the webbing and makes a notch instead of a hole and that can get confusing. I am sure glad I did toe punch, though, 'cause those zip ties break in this hot dry climate, cannot depend on them. I was leaving the zip ties on even though they were punched so I could tell at a distance which mating I was looking at instead of having to catch the bird. Soon the birds will be big enough to put numbered bands on, the size I have is too big for young birds--I'd be picking them up off the ground all over the place.

 

[NanaKat]

I toe punch as I move them from the hatcher to the brooder. I incubate in trays inside the incubator so I won't to mark the pens before they get mixed in the brooder.

 

[maryhysong]

My idea this year was a toe punch so I got one and toe punched all to indicate line . All had visible holes at time of punching but in two weeks half were grown back and un identifiable.
I must have done something wrong . I guess ? So I put wing tags on . They worked great but I was looking for a temporary marker till I put wing tags in.

I recently started punching; I use a toe punch as the rooster mark and a colored zip tie as the hens mark; I punched at hatch, trying to make sure the skin flap was out of the hole. I checked them at one week and repunched a few that I didnt' get good enough the first time; after that no worries, nice big holes as they grow

 

[bnjrob]

VETRAP or coflex BANDAGING in various colors is awesome from day 1 through maturity...I just cut a quarter inch wide piece about as long as needed and wrap the leg forming a band and fold end part to make a little tag ending...it breathes and expands quite a bit with growth...it stays on great too.

find it at feed store or here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Full-CASE-3...618?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d1acd232

Now that is an awesome idea. We use spiral bands but wait until about day three or later to put them on because their legs are so spindly and the smaller spirals are hard to open sometimes that we're afraid we'll break their little legs trying to get the bands on right out of the incubator. We just changed spiral bands on 3 week old chicks tonight - they are up to size 7 and 8 bands. Getting some big legs on them. This is the second time we've had to change them out. Couldn't do it if I was by myself but the vet wrap could be do-able by myself.

 

[maryhysong]

Now that is an awesome idea. We use spiral bands but wait until about day three or later to put them on because their legs are so spindly and the smaller spirals are hard to open sometimes that we're afraid we'll break their little legs trying to get the bands on right out of the incubator. We just changed spiral bands on 3 week old chicks tonight - they are up to size 7 and 8 bands. Getting some big legs on them. This is the second time we've had to change them out. Couldn't do it if I was by myself but the vet wrap could be do-able by myself.

I have been using small colored zip ties, easy to do by myself and easy to cut off to be changed; I just use my wire cutters and snip through the lock part.largish packages at Walmart work out to be about $1 a hundred so cheap enough

 

[bnjrob]

I have been using small colored zip ties, easy to do by myself and easy to cut off to be changed; I just use my wire cutters and snip through the lock part.largish packages at Walmart work out to be about $1 a hundred so cheap enough

I haven't found zip ties with enough colors. With the spiral bands, there are more color choices. This batch of chicks there are 17. So needed quite a few different colors to be able to individually ID them. Put bands on the right leg to indicate one breeding pen and on the left leg for the other breeding pen.

We ID individually with colored spiral bands and then with metal numbered bands that are a different color for each year hatched.

 

[cbnovick]

Now that is an awesome idea. We use spiral bands but wait until about day three or later to put them on because their legs are so spindly and the smaller spirals are hard to open sometimes that we're afraid we'll break their little legs trying to get the bands on right out of the incubator. We just changed spiral bands on 3 week old chicks tonight - they are up to size 7 and 8 bands. Getting some big legs on them. This is the second time we've had to change them out. Couldn't do it if I was by myself but the vet wrap could be do-able by myself.

Yes, i do all my birds myself...i have not had issues with them falling off as long as i am really careful to seal the bandage ends real well, forming a doubled tab/tag on the end.

 

[Robert Blosl]

Has anyone done wing banding and have you found a site that explains it?

Also, has anyone bought chicks from Virginia from Joel Gilman? What did you get?

How many people have Mottled Javas. I do?

If you got a new incubator this year what model did you get and how did it perform?

Toe punching has been done for decades. Right from the incubator to the brooder box.

Great responses hope you have many nice birds growing up for you who don't know this you can get a

account at Picturetrail.com or Photo bucket then post your pictures on there so we can see them. May help with your feed bill so you don't keep some longer than you should.

 

[Chris Herzog]

Bob,
I do both wing band and toe punch. If you go on you tube you can find a bunch of vids that explain how to do it...it's really no big deal. If you have not moved on this by the time your next show comes around I'll bring my tool and some bands and show you how to apply them and remove them if necessary.

Also if you prefer, I can also take some pics tonight and e-mail them to you with directions of how I do them. Just let me know because I have some birds now that need to be done.

Chris