How do you mark your eggs for hatching?

[Arielle]

Other than the O and X to mark the egg for turning purposes, how do you mark you eggs regarding which pen they came from? Hatch date or date into incubator? I want to be able to keep track of parentage from multiple pens. Suggestions??

 

[cashdl]

I have a turner so don't do the x and o, however on the side I will put the pen they came out of and the hen that laid the egg - usually only if I am setting the eggs myself( I only put the pen they come out of when selling them for hatching eggs), on the top I put the date they are set to hatch, that way I can very easily grab the ones I need to move to the hatcher on day 18. As they are hatching I put colored leg bands on them based on the pen they came out of ( If I see them hatching, which I usually do). Eventually I will have a seperate hatcher for each pen and that way I know who comes from where even when I don't see them hatch. Having the roo and hen on the eggs is useful for me, example - today a double tufted blue chipmonk chick hatched. I knew the pen it was out of and the hen that laid the egg, which is interesting because neither the hen or roo show tufts, but apparantly one is tufted since tufts can only come from tufted parents. If I didn't mark my eggs, I would have just figured the egg came out of a different pen and not thought anything of it.


Lanae

 

[Arielle]

May I ask where you buy tiny leg bands and what info should be on them ?

 

[cmom]

I write my info on a calendar and use a fine tip marker and on the egg put what I have.

 

[cashdl]

I found tiny plastic slinky looking leg bands at a local farm supply. There is no room to put anything on them. I put a red band on the chicks from my spash pen - bbr hen, black bands on all other chicks out of the splash pen. I put pink bands on chicks from the duckwing pen, brown bands on the blue pen and so on. The color of the bands tells me what I need to know. The bands are only for the first 3 months, then I have to take them off because they get small. By then I can look at a chick and know which pen and hen they are from, so I don't need the bands any more.

Lanae

 

[cashdl]

I have heard of some using tiny zip ties and writing on them. I have kicked around using them and may go for it because you can put info on the tie and as the chick grows change out the zip tie and the info. The info I would put on the zip ties is 1) my guess as to gender, 2) pen they are out of, 3) hen they are out of, 4) date of hatch so it would look something like this - p,1,3,6/19 p stands for pullet, 1 is the pen #, 3 is the hen #, and the last is june 19th. If I go to this method I will band each of my birds with a number and their pen will have a number painted on it. So the roo will just have the number of the pen, the hens will have the pen # and their own number such as one two or three. The hardest part will be keeping up with which hen laid what eventually. Right now I only have 3 hens per pen and they each lay a slightly different egg, so they are prett easy to identify. As my pens get bigger and if I add another roo I will need to revamp my recording system, but it seems like it may work for now.

Lanae

 

[Arielle]

Are these bands small enough to use several of them in combination, to create a code of sorts; 2-3 bands each leg? I've heard of toe punching too. I'm guessing, it is a hole punch thru the thin tissue between the toes.