Colored leg bands

[navychick]

I read on a post here a bit back about using colored small elastic pony tail hair ties as leg bands. I bought a package and was excited to apply them to our flock (6 1/2 weeks old) to help identify each girl as an individual. We have 3 EE, 3 SLW, 3 PBR and 3 BO. I chose green, blue and purple. The band went on easily and fit great allowing a lot of room for growth but when I put her down to apply another band to another chick everyone ran to her and started pecking at her band. I removed the band for now until I hear from you experts. Will they lose interest or will they peck and cause injury?

 

[Eris]

Were you able to try putting a band on all the chicks to see how they would react all having a one on them?

 

[navychick]

My daughter thought if they all had bands they wouldn't care so much. I just need advice,

 

[2hot2chicken]

I have a few silkies I am trying to rehome and since I am getting rid of 3 out of 8 blue silkies and 2 out of 4 buff it would have been nice to be able to band them. I tried using the tiny colored zip ties and it worked well but I had the same pecking problem so I quickly removed them I only marked the ones to get rid of. I am going to try tonight to band all of them and see how that goes. I am also gona put them out in their run where they have more room to get away from each other for a while after I do it....... If it would warm up here anyway.......... kinda hard to pick out a single silkie out of 14 lil fluff balls running round when someone comes to take 1 home : ) And we have certain 1's that we do not want to sell so what to do?????

 

[navychick]

Quote:
Please let me know how it goes?

 

[stcroixusvi]

I used plastic bands, and the chickens did the same thing for about 2 minutes and then they were on to something else. Try putting a treat in just after you band everyone.