Toe punching ducklings ...question?

[Mrs MIA]

Quote:
I do it right when they came out of the hatcher. But Ive been told you can do it a couple of days old, but you will get some blood. just use some flour or corn startch.

hmmm... the youngest are almost a week now... I'll be ready for a little blood... maybe it WOULD be better to just band the dozen that are not from my line...

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Quote:
I do it right when they came out of the hatcher. But Ive been told you can do it a couple of days old, but you will get some blood. just use some flour or corn startch.

hmmm... the youngest are almost a week now... I'll be ready for a little blood... maybe it WOULD be better to just band the dozen that are not from my line...​

I think they will be fine. Just a drop or so of blood.

 

[Mrs MIA]

OK... I'll do it. With all these birds, I'm an expert at stopping bleeding...

someone or another is ALWAYS tearing into someone, or catching a toenail...

Thanks~!

 

[TennesseeTruly]

I'm glad I read this post. When I first heard of toe punching, I was so against it. It sounded like torture to me. But I guess if it's done when they're very young, it can be a good identification tool.

I have a problem with banding as I have parrots and sometimes they get caught on things. With parrots we use mostly stainless steel bands and they're NOT easy to remove.

I'm not showing ducks or will show them in the future but I'd like a way to identify my ducks. Toe punching sounds like it may be a way to do that.

Thank you for this post.

Laurie

 

[Mrs MIA]

It wasn't bad at all. A little drop of blood on the older birds, but I dabbed it and it stopped right away. A few of them I popped right into the bath right after I punched the webbing, and they never made a peep. Whew!! I'm so happy!!

 

[monarc23]

I'm considering doing this with my quails hmmm

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

Quote:
I will be doing it with my buff silkies. Hopefully it works.

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

we are toe punchaholics......

 

[Mrs MIA]

Well, leg bands are ok if you have a few birds... I tried to keep track of dozens with legbands, and I missed a couple.

No serious injuries, but if I hadn't found them when I did... whoo-wee. I was so upset with myself. You really have to make a concerted effort to change the bands every week or you risk injury to their legs. This is SO much easier on everyone.

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Well, leg bands are ok if you have a few birds... I tried to keep track of dozens with legbands, and I missed a couple.

No serious injuries, but if I hadn't found them when I did... whoo-wee. I was so upset with myself. You really have to make a concerted effort to change the bands every week or you risk injury to their legs. This is SO much easier on everyone.

We leg band them once they are adults, if they go to shows..... you are right about keeping up with a lot of birds and making adjustments to the legbands...... and we toe punch just about everything.
Sometimes I need to put name tags on my kids.....you ever go through every name before you get to theirs?....lol​