tricky spiral leg bands?

[flitter]

Nix on the rubber bands.
Don't stock up on green nail polish.
Trade in DH on someone who likes to stretch spiral rings.
I ordered (cheap) wrist coils last night. Thinking maybe I could cut them?
I wish I could come up with a reliable way to mark zip strips. Permanent marker doesn't seem to wear well.
Chickens seem to present a wide range of problems to solve! Good that we get "hooked" on them. They are fascinating to watch.

 

[carolinasculpture]

Hi! Hope it is going getter for you today! I do use the colored hair bands on the chicks, but they are kinda plastic-ish and come really small. They work fine on 1 day old to about 5 weeks and then I switch to the next size up. I didn't mess with the spiral bands until they were grown and I would only have to do it once. I kinda sat the chicken on my lap and then opened the spiral in the middle so there was a space between the ends (wow, this is hard to describe!) then slid that opening onto the leg. Once it was on, I could just turn it to get it on the rest of the way and the spiral closed. That said, we raised all our chickens from 1-3 days old and they are VERY used to being handled and seem to be pretty patient. Hope that helps some...Good luck!

 

[flitter]

Yes, that did help. It is sort off what I did but when I had it almost on it seemed to hang up as I twisted it. The hen just sat there but really squawked as if it hurt. She's fine today.

 

[8Chicks4Ky]

please don't take offense by this, but what is the purpose of leg bands? I mean, why would you need to tell them apart from each other?

 

[Katy]

Quote:
I use them so I know which line they hatched from.....how old they are....etc.

 

[mulewagon]

Just please be careful about growth, especially with the roosters (get a larger size for them). The spiral bands look like they'll expand, but they don't. And they don't look any different when they're embedded in the leg, either - I speak from sad experience...