Tracking flock age

[kcult]

Since all my chickens are the same age, I'm posting this in the Quail subsection. I'm sure it could apply to any animal group.

To date, I've hatched out three sets of quail eggs. Currently, I have some birds that are seven weeks, some that are four weeks, and some that are four days old. I also just loaded up the incubator yesterday with another dozen eggs.

Is anyone here keeping track of separate group's ages, up to sexual maturity and beyond?

If you are, besides just remembering, how are you doing it, and to a lesser extent, why?

 

[Dandichook]

Hi! I don't have quail of different age groups, yet, but I have been tracking my quail flock obsessively.

We differentiate them by using leg bands. When they're very young chicks, we used "puppy bows" or silicone orthodontics rings, with each bird getting a unique combination of colors. As they have reached adulthood we transitioned them to larger rigid plastic rings with numbers.

They have dropped some of the rings on occasion, but it's mostly been sufficient to track everyone.

You could get rings and associate a color with an age--yellow hatched in March, blue hatched in April, etc.

Pics of what we used below!

Edit to add: As to why, it's because we love data, and we wanted to be able to track growth rates, aggression, handleability, etc. across 40+ very similar looking birds so that we can select the objectively best birds as breeders, since the rest will go to freezer camp.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Hi! I don't have quail of different age groups, yet, but I have been tracking my quail flock obsessively.

We differentiate them by using leg bands. When they're very young chicks, we used "puppy bows" or silicone orthodontics rings, with each bird getting a unique combination of colors. As they have reached adulthood we transitioned them to larger rigid plastic rings with numbers.

They have dropped some of the rings on occasion, but it's mostly been sufficient to track everyone.

You could get rings and associate a color with an age--yellow hatched in March, blue hatched in April, etc.

Pics of what we used below!

Edit to add: As to why, it's because we love data, and we wanted to be able to track growth rates, aggression, handleability, etc. across 40+ very similar looking birds so that we can select the objectively best birds as breeders, since the rest will go to freezer cam

Keeps amazing data, recommend reading their threads.