How does McMurrey mark the chicks?

[antiquebuff]

My first order of chicks will be here in April and I ordered a number of different kinds and am wondering if they mark them with leg bands or what so I can tell the kind?
I ordered eggs off ebay and that were supposed to be Silkies and I think they turned out to be Top Hats.
So Cute though!

Thanks for the help!

 

[silkiechicken]

Unless requested, I don't think they will mark them and you'll just have to come here with pics and what you ordered.

I think that they use different colored pens to mark their birds... like a splotch on their heads. Not sure though.

Best of luck!

 

[mullers3acers]

When I have recieved orders of chicks from McMurray and our local feed store they have separated the different breeds by sections in the shipping box. And you can go online to the McMurray site and they will show you a pic of what the babies look like when they hatch.

 

[MNKris]

The ones we just got from MM were marked with a marker on the head, belly and toes. It was green and the chicks are about 4 1/2 weeks old and are just completely losing the color on their heads now. The mark was very obvious.

 

[chickenranchwife]

I just got my order last week and none of them were marked. I got three different assortments, so I am playing the guessing game on them. Good luck, might want to call them to see if they can mark which is which.

 

[Rte.66_chicks]

I'm getting my chicks (BOs, Lt Brahmas, and RIRs) in April; am planning on printing out the chick photos from McMurray to compare. I think they should be fairly easy to tell apart, I hope so, because the RIRs are for my mother-in-law.

 

[MNKris]

They will be easy to tell. If you want them marked, you do have to ask or they won't do it. We did it because my brother got some Red Stars and I have some RIRs that look alike as day olds.

 

[sBrickmanHouse]

We received an order of mixed brown egg layers from McMurray a month ago, and none were marked.

We had a difficult time the first few days telling the White Rock chicks from the Buff Orps (really needed to get them in good light to see that the Rocks were slightly lighter), and it took a couple of weeks for us to figure out that one of our Speckled Sussex was, in fact, an Easter Egger. Also had to really concentrate on the face markings to tell the Silver Laced Wyandottes from the Black Australorps from the Barred Rocks.

We're newbie chicken owners, so we were probably just really bad at identifying the different chicks, but if you need to know quickly what they are and you think you might have any trouble at all, I'd definitely recommend asking to have them marked!