ID Bands- Suggestions- Reviews- Failures * Edited-what system do you use?

[RememberTheWay]

You could perhaps use a combinatio of zip ties, keeping track of them by what pen they are in, and then putting individual numbers bands on them when they are fully grown.

Of course you would need records to keep all that straight.

It might work out to something like this:
Use zipties when they hatch for tracking chicks from a specific mother, and for breed if there are multiple breeds in that hatch. Depending on how many mothers and/or breeds, one color each might work, or you might need a two color/two leg system. You could re-use colors a bit, if some breeds are visually distinct (so a White Leghorn and a Black Australorp might each have a red band, indicating specific mothers of those breeds, because there's no way you will mix up the black bird for the white one.) Maybe use one specific ziptie color to mark chicks from a hatchery. Hatchery chicks might also get ziptie colors to label breed and/or sex.

At first, I assume the newly hatched chicks will be in a pen by themselves. So you know the hatch date for all the birds in that pen.

You could use a specific ziptie color to flag any chick that had a problem (pasty butt, curled toe, assisted hatch, etc.) Then note in your records what the problem was. Or even put food coloring on those chicks as a temporary measure, then give them a more permanent record later.

As the chicks get older and their legs get bigger, of course you will have to keep changing the zipties. As their legs get longer, they could also stand more than one little ziptie per leg. So if you combine pens of chicks, add another ziptie to one leg of each chick, as a way to track hatch dates for chicks within that pen.

You will presumably be removing chicks at various ages (selling or killing them). Mark them out of your lists of chicks, and it frees up some amount of colors and combinations to use again. As it becomes obvious which are males vs. females, you will no longer need bands to track those ones (the hatchery ones with guarantees.)

At some point, their legs will be adult-sized or close enough, and you could put on bands with individual numbers. I'm not sure what style of band would be good for that, but individual numbers per bird would let you keep permanent records from that time forward. Of course you would combine the chick records with the permanent adult number for each bird you keep as an adult.

You could even assign a permanent numbered band to each chick at hatch, as a way to organize your records, then use the various temporary methods to track the chick while it is younger (band number 1234 goes with the chick in pen A, wearing a red band on the left leg and a yellow band on the right leg, marked with red food coloring because it had pasty butt.)


For the pasty butt, curly toes, etc, you could track each individual thing. Or you could use one mark for all birds that should be culled (not used for breeding.) That could be a single band color on a designated leg, or food coloring, or I've sometimes use clipped feathers for this too (example: clip all flight feathers on the left wing, and re-check regularly as they molt so you can re-clip.)

You might consider something permanent (like toe punching) for marking those birds, so you can always spot it and don't have to change another band each time they grow. I read one piece of breeding advice in an old book: to sort through chicks at a certain age and cut off one toe of the obvious culls, then growing them out for meat. (The culls are certainly not going to lose THAT marking method, but personally I don't think I'd be happy doing that to them.)

Or with that many birds, maybe have a few pens that are just for culls (sorted by age: young chick culls, middle-sized culls, adults) Instead of marking the birds, you could physically move them to the cull pens.


Separate bands certainly could work for that. If you use thin zipties on adult birds, they could have several on each leg without it being a big deal, to track various different traits.

Maybe combine that with individual numbered bands on adult birds, so you can spot some things at a distanc(color of zipties) and some things when you pick up the bird (their individual number lets you look up your complete records on that bird.)


I don't have much personal experience to offer, but I've spent some time thinking about systems for possible future use.

Personal experience is limited to colored zipties, poorly organized records that are handwritten or typed into a computer, and clipping feathers to visually identify culls or birds to butcher.

Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. I have pondered on all this quite a bit. I now have a situation where I had blue Plymouth rocks growing out with a group of black blue splash Andalusians and now I can't visually tell which five were the BPR's . Those are hybrids, not the full Andalusians that I intended to use for a breeding project. I have to get a system and quickly. I can't have this happen again. Before I was breeding it didn't really matter how old anyone was or what breed or generation or health, etc, etc. now it does and when you have as many birds as I do it gets quite confusing and very complicated very fast. I probably have forty different alone. And five generations.

Anyways.... Something I am seriously considering is using more then one zip tie and possibly buying small pony beads to slip into those zip ties that will also have a key created for the colors. So then the order of the color of beads would tell you things about that specific bird. I also had considered using colors over for certain breeds that were easy to distinguish. Right now I am narrowing things down to a few projects. I will have three pens that will house both a hybrid pair and a pure bred pair- one rooster two breeds of hens with different egg colors. I have three of these combinations I've come up with so far. Then I also have my fun projects with the Cochin Bantams, silkies, and lavender ameraucanas bantams. The first two being apart of my broody hen hatchery pen.

I also think that my more detailed records tied to a number band on a bird will work well for the purposes I have here.

On another note- No way could I just remove a birds toe! Yikes- that's crazy nope. No way. No how. Lol