How Can I Mark My Big Red Boys?

[3KillerBs]

I don't have a local source to buy a few leg bands and can't justify the price of ordering them online when I will probably only need them for a short time until the Big Red Boys (Vinnie, Stew, 'Tore, Parm, and Fry), find new homes.

But for now I'd like to have a means of telling the 5, nearly identical chicks apart just in the interest of making sure that I handle and socialize all of them so that if they end up as flock roosters instead of freezer birds they are not too wild and know that the humans are boss.

Is there any way to accomplish this without buying $15 on 100leg bands?

 

[donrae]

Zip ties?

I'm not sure, really. But my ideas on rooster raising are different than yours, I don't handle my roosters at all. Ever. I mean, as chicks I pick them up when I need to move them to a different pen or something like that, but I don't handle or socialize them. IMO that leads to roosters getting way too comfortable with humans and thinking they're the boss. Just my thoughts.

 

[3KillerBs]

Thank you for your thoughts.

I've always been pretty good at dominance over dogs, cats, cockatiels, job subordinates, and teenage children so my intent was to apply the same methods I've always used -- to treat them well but not allow insubordinate behavior and to win any challenges.

I have always held it as a principle that any animal I own must be willing to be caught and handled and not be allowed to be wild. So my concern is to make sure that each of the boys is caught and handled daily so that he accepts it as a routine part of existence.

I would probably do things differently in a flock of dozens, but I have no use for either pet or working animals that can't be readily caught and routinely handled without panicked escape attempts or severe stress.