'How to apply wing bands' and 'Spreadsheet for record keeping'

[Dlmillion]

First of all, I just got a bunch of (200) jiffy style wing bands so that i can permanently identify my chicks and keep individual records on them so that i can more effectively select breeding stock. I had a hard time finding good information about the wing bands in general and couldn't easily find a video showing how to apply them properly and safely so i decided to make a video myself to help save fellow newbies time.
NOTICE: This was my very first time putting wing bands on chicks so i was a touch nervous but it turned out to be extremely easy.

VIDEO:

WING BANDS: http://www.ketchummfg.com/wing-bandear-tags-aluminum-numbered

It's been two days since i applied the bands and the chicks don't seem at all irritated or uncomfortable with the bands and now it's so much easier to keep track of each one! So far, I am definitely happy that i decided to try it out.


Secondly, I made an excel spreadsheet in order to easily keep track of my chicks as they grow and not have to do any weight gain calculations myself. The columns are pretty specific to my needs but if it is useful to just one other person, then it would be worth sharing so here it is. Feel free to use is, change it, or ignore it as you please.
SPREADSHEET:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8In3P9Jq5XKMHpIOXB4M0Y1ajg/view?usp=sharing

Lastly, if you would like to follow my progress and see my spreadheet as i collect data, I am posting everything on this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ware-white-rock-dark-cornish/50#post_17385422

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Wonderful video, very informative! I'm going to make that my next investment, likely next month as I'm going to apply the THIRD round of zip ties to my 4 week olds today and that's a lot of work... Do you know if the wing bands are reusable? As in, can you take one off an older bird, rebend it and use it again on a chick? It may not be hygienic, and the bands may not be in the best shape I would imagine after 18 weeks or so on a chicken, just curious.

I'm glad I'm not in this project alone, it's so nice to have a few people to bounce ideas and numbers off of and to collect data with!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I have had some experience using both wing bands and all kinds of leg bands. The best overall course of action is to first toe web punch, or if you have enough breeding lines toe web split and nostril mark your young chicks. Don't be scared to cull any chick or line of

chicks that fails to live up to your ideal of what a chicken should be. Age will not turn any weakling chick into the Charles Atlas of the poultry world. You will end up breeding inferior chickens if you attempt to save every egg that pips.

Then at about 8 weeks old put a wing band in the front webbing on one wing. By choosing either a right wing or a left wing to band you are only creating another way for you to tell your birds from each other.

There are 10 different Spiral Wing Band colors and incidentally there are 10 separate years in a decade so a different color spiral leg band on one or the other foot should tell you the year the chick was hatched and make it easier for you to find those special brood hens.

Wing and leg bands are also available with letters and numbers as well as with just numbers so if you really need to you can keep up with the pedigrees of 1,000s of chickens by only looking in a note book. Keep a separate spiral bound note book for each and every

year. Each chicken hatched each year needs to have its parents and grandparents listed and you can go back a year at a time by going backwards in your stud book.

 

[Dlmillion]

Wonderful video, very informative! I'm going to make that my next investment, likely next month as I'm going to apply the THIRD round of zip ties to my 4 week olds today and that's a lot of work... Do you know if the wing bands are reusable? As in, can you take one off an older bird, rebend it and use it again on a chick? It may not be hygienic, and the bands may not be in the best shape I would imagine after 18 weeks or so on a chicken, just curious.

I'm glad I'm not in this project alone, it's so nice to have a few people to bounce ideas and numbers off of and to collect data with!

From what i understand and from looking at these bands, i do not believe they are meant to be re-usable. I do think that you could potentially re use them if you really needed to but i don't plan on it as they are pretty cheap and I think that it would be best to have a separate ID for every chicken that i go through so i can have a more organized and efficient data base years down the road.

It is so helpful to have other people to work along side! not only does it help to come up with new ideas but, I know it helps me to feel motivated to follow through with this!

 

[Dlmillion]

as @aart suggested, here are a couple pictures showing the bone and tendons in a chicken wing! hopefully these help

 

[ejcrist]

I watched a video on applying bands to chicks but I couldn't tell how far back behind the tendon the hole was made. Do you pierce the skin as far back as the band will allow or just somewhere past the tendon within range of the band? Also, as they grow does the skin just stay loose around the piercing to accommodate the band?

I'm seriously considering using wing bands because I'm starting a breeding program in another two months or so and I need a reliable way to ID the birds. The plastic bands just aren't reliable since some of my layers picked theirs off. I don't know how they did it since I found it a challenge to hold the bird in one arm and spread the plastic band with one hand enough to get it to coil around the leg. My birds are confined to a secure coop and run though so I guess it's like people in the slam - they have all day to figure things out.

 

[aart]

Wonderful video, very informative! I'm going to make that my next investment, likely next month as I'm going to apply the THIRD round of zip ties to my 4 week olds today and that's a lot of work...

Leave them looser, juuuuust tight enough not to go back over the foot...takes some practice/experience.
I only change out zip ties 3 (maybe 4) times from hatch to adult (6 months).
But am only dealing with a couple dozen birds at most and usually do the banding at night off roost with a head light.

@Dlmillion Good vid.
Would be nice if you could stick a simple graphic showing bone and tendon anatomy in there, could probably find one on web.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Leave them looser, juuuuust tight enough not to go back over the foot...takes some practice/experience.
I only change out zip ties 3 (maybe 4) times from hatch to adult (6 months).
But am only dealing with a couple dozen birds at most and usually do the banding at night off roost with a head light.

@Dlmillion Good vid.
Would be nice if you could stick a simple graphic showing bone and tendon anatomy in there, could probably find one on web.

I've tried leaving them loose enough to let them grow into them, but I've had several that have slipped the ties off even after checking/pulling over the extended foot. That was a pain to figure out which was which... I'm sure I'll get better with it by the time my next batch comes. Thank you for the advice.

I'm also not a fan of the colors that I got, it was a 10 pack of different colors, but the green, yellow and neon yellow all start to look alike when they get dirty.

 

[aart]

Quote: Yep, takes practice.... and yes, color choices can be an issue.
I have 6 colors red, green, blue, yellow, black, and clear...they've stayed pretty obvious.
I find yellow to be the most problematic and have changed out adults when they get too dirty to see well.
Also can go right leg, left leg and add multiple bands. I have a spreadsheet someone gave me that has 164 combos with just 4 colors.
My needs are much more simple tho.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

From what i understand and from looking at these bands, i do not believe they are meant to be re-usable. I do think that you could potentially re use them if you really needed to but i don't plan on it as they are pretty cheap and I think that it would be best to have a separate ID for every chicken that i go through so i can have a more organized and efficient data base years down the road.

It is so helpful to have other people to work along side! not only does it help to come up with new ideas but, I know it helps me to feel motivated to follow through with this!

Yeah, I didn't think anyone would want to reuse them necessarily, just curious. I thought the zip ties would be reusable, but they get pretty funky really quickly, and aren't as easy to pull apart as I'd hoped. They're much narrower than I'd expected, so the mechanism is very tiny. At $.04 per zip tie (250 for $10 on Amazon), it sounds like a good deal, but going through 3-4 of them during the chicken's life adds up, as well as the time to change them out, etc., so the wing clips' cost starts looking much better.

If I could do it over again, I'd make sure to get the wider zip ties, that might also help to keep them from sliding off when the chickens stretch their legs/toes out behind them. But next time I'll likely do the clips.