Tattooing chickens?

[Sammbalina]

I was wondering if anyone has tattooed their chickens as a form of permanent Identification? I'm planning on leg banding them, but I can't find bands that are customizable enough, plus I've heard that they have a tendency to fall off, so I want to make sure that all the birds I am keeping have some sort of permanent Identification for record keeping purposes. I'm not showing, but will be experimenting a bit next year, and I want to track exactly who I breed to who. If anyone has tried it, where did you put the tattoo? I was thinking of getting a tattoo pen like what is used on rabbits, but wanted to see what others thought first.

And please DO NOT suggest zipties. I don't like the idea of zipties, and I am set on that. They wouldn't be able to hold any id #s or anything anyway. I wanted to use elastic cord and number/letter beads, but elastic cord is hard to come by now that everyone is making masks.


I tried searching for tattooing information, but seemed to only find tattoos on people of chickens I would get one, but I think I'm allergic to tatt ink. My 9 year old tattoo still itches like mad sometimes, so I don't want to risk another...

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Someone on a different thread said they had a tattoo on each of their birds bellies, but that was it.

 

[RojoMarz]

Not sure if you've seen this thread. Also this has a blurb about tattoos.

 

[Fishychix]

Not sure if you've seen this thread. Also this has a blurb about tattoos.

I really like the one from Chris in your first link. I took a screen shot of it. It’s on the first page towards the bottom.

 

[RojoMarz]

I really like the one from Chris in your first link. I took a screen shot of it. It’s on the first page towards the bottom.

Does seem like a good system they are using.

 

[aart]

I took a screen shot of it. It’s on the first page towards the bottom.

Too bad they didn't include a pic of the tattoo.

On my birds ( RIR's ) we use 3 forms of identification the first form is a "dummy" leg band like this the second form of ID is a wing band like this and the third is a tattoo in the wing web..
I take a picture of the tattoo I had put in each birds wing web then load it in a "chicken ID" file on the computer. In the chicken ID file I have a picture of all the birds, there tattoo number picture, wing band number and the "dummy leg band" number..
That way you can pull up and print out all the information of a bird that was stolen and take it with you all so you have picture proof of the tattoo identification number.
Now I have to say I have never had a bird stolen (knock on wood) but Id rather be safe than sorry...
Chris

If you don't want leg bands, wing bands are probably the best bet.
Not sure chickens thin skin is conducive to tattooing.