Any ideas about another way to identify these chicks? Paint might work but they'll be molting here in a few weeks.
Yes, paint might work. Of course you would have to re-do it with each molt.
If you are willing to re-do it frequently as they each molt, you can identify chickens by clipping feathers. Maybe cut some wing feathers short on the right wing of one chick, left of another, and the third would be either both wings or the tail.
For chicks, there is a lot of re-checking, but the do not molt all their wing feathers at once. So when you find that some of the clipped feathers are missing, pay attention to clip the new ones as they finish growing (don't clip blood feathers that are still growing, just the ones that are done.)
Once they settle down to keeping one set of feathers long-term, paint or clipped feathers last much better
You can also use zip ties: put it around the leg, pull it enough to still be rather loose, cut off the loose end so nothing pulls it tighter. To take it off, cut through the plastic lump where it fastens, rather than trying to cut the part that's directly around the leg.
They grew out of the "large" bands within a few days. The extra large was the largest I could find. I can't imagine a chick small enough for the "extra small" bands.
Wherever you bought them must think they are selling for pigeons or small pet birds or something. Larger legbands DO exist on some websites.
For example, McMurray hatchery has a page of legbands for sale:
https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/leg_bands_and_bandettes.html
They give band sizes in inches, with the smallest being 1/4" across and the largest 1 inch across (meant for adult geese). You can measure the size bands you used, or hold a ruler next to a chick's leg, to get an idea of what size would be good.
(McMurray is not the only site that sells them. I just listed it as one example.)
