Marking chicks?

[jkg]

What is the best way or what are the options of ways to mark chicks for various reasons? Maybe I want to mark chicks I think are roosters vs hens or maybe breed x over breed y... or maybe I want to mark one that one of my kids gave a name to already. In any case, how can I do it? Paint on their leg? Toenail polish? I'd prefer something I can make at home... don't feel like ordering specialized leg bands (which I'm sure must exist).

 

[Over Easy in Adna]

One of the "cheep" ways I have seen on here is to use colored zip ties.

 

[onthespot]

I buy those little food coloring squeeze bottles and dye their butt fluff when they hatch. Stays put for a couple months until they moult and you can't lose track that way. If there are eggs that I need to keep track of when they are in the hatcher, like from different breeder lines, I put a little plastic strawberry basket upside down over it so they don't mingle after they hatch.

 

[babyspice35]

Mark them by painting their toenails. Most people have that lying around the house and it should last for about 2 weeks or so, until you can tell them apart better by their feathers, etc.

 

[Sc00ter4900]

Dumb question but if you mark or color toes butts Ect. woun't they peck at it? the other hen I mean. Just curious Thanks Scotty

 

[write2caroline]

Stay away from Red or they will peck at it. I noticed neon colors now offered with the squeeze bottles of food coloring. I would refrain from Magenta too cause it looks red but their is teal, purple, peach and a funny green and in the regular ones the standard blue, green and yellow. - you could mix colors too but again stay away from reds.

Caroline

 

[MissAnnieFrannie]

many hatcheries mark there heads with color to seperate sexed chicks (males from females), seems like that would be a good *short* term solution...

 

[Horsefly]

I've heard you can just mark their backs wih sharpies it should stay till the down grows out. My sister works with lab rats and they mark the base of their tails with sharpie to keep track of them, they have to go over it every 3 days or so on the tail. So if you wanted it to last not as long as the feathers growing in you could mark their feet.

 

[Fort Orpington]

A couple of weeks after we got our chicks, and thought we could tell the difference in the girls and boys, we marked the boys with a sharpie permanent marker. My husband just drew a "band" around their leg. Then later when we decided which rooster to keep he got a "band" so we would not loose track of who he was. The marker stays on for two or three weeks, it is really easy to do and when it starts to come off you can just redraw it. You can even use different colors for your kids so you can know who's is who's. We used red marker, I did not realize that they would pick at it. I do not think that ours ever did, and I did spend a lot of time just staring at them, and never noticed any injuries. But I am also VERY new having chickens and would not want them to get hurt so I would rather be safe than sorry, we will probably not use red again now that I know this. But here is a picture of our "marking"

 

[Ridgerunner]

Since you asked, I'll give this site so you can see if there are any options on here that you would be interested in. I have not tried any of these.

Leg bands and toe punching
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=126202