I raise geese for the table. I have 3 families. All of my ganders are Embden. One family has all Embden girls and the other two families have both Embden and French Toulouse girls. The parents are labeled with colored zip ties. I have a blue and a red and a yellow family. I have used various methods to mark my growing birds but I really want to use a marker which is easy to see from a distance. I want to be able to watch my goslings grow up and get a feeling over the season about which pen is producing the best birds. In any given flock the parents will be raising children from all three families, that’s simply the way I do things. So I would like to be able to glance at one of my families and right away know which birds came from which set of parents.
I use a hole punch to mark the feet as a permanent marker of family. But of course I can’t see that from a distance. I have tried leg bands and of course I use zip ties for my adults but again, I cannot see that well from a distance and snap on bands do fall off sometimes. Also they have to be replaced as the bird grows and if they get too tight they are very unpleasant and even dangerous. I have used a zip ties around the “arm pit“ of the bird. They tend to get hidden in the feathers. Again, I need to see which bird is which from a distance.
I have decided that I would like to try something different for next year. Specifically I would like to use crayon or lipstick or some other waterproof material to paint feathers on the birds probably at the shoulder so that I can see them from a distance. I would paint birds as soon as they hatched, once feathers come in and then at every molt. Blue coat does not really last long enough and of course it only comes in one color. What is your experience what have you tried what works what doesn’t work. Thank you very much.
I use a hole punch to mark the feet as a permanent marker of family. But of course I can’t see that from a distance. I have tried leg bands and of course I use zip ties for my adults but again, I cannot see that well from a distance and snap on bands do fall off sometimes. Also they have to be replaced as the bird grows and if they get too tight they are very unpleasant and even dangerous. I have used a zip ties around the “arm pit“ of the bird. They tend to get hidden in the feathers. Again, I need to see which bird is which from a distance.
I have decided that I would like to try something different for next year. Specifically I would like to use crayon or lipstick or some other waterproof material to paint feathers on the birds probably at the shoulder so that I can see them from a distance. I would paint birds as soon as they hatched, once feathers come in and then at every molt. Blue coat does not really last long enough and of course it only comes in one color. What is your experience what have you tried what works what doesn’t work. Thank you very much.
