Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

I am thinking of switching to wing bands, as i thought one of my cockerals had lost his ( as has happened lots of times before). a couple weeks later i noticed he was limping and i picked him up... the leg band had migrated up his leg and was starting to grow into his thigh, i have never seen that before or even knew the leg band could stretch that much. That was a couple months ago and i am happy to say he made a complete recovery but i can still feel where the legband had been

I have heard stories of similar problems with leg bands cutting/growing into the flesh of the leg. Hence, I always use a size that sort of flops around the birds leg - one size larger. And we never tag until the birds are six- to seven-months old. Never considered the bands could defy gravity. Maybe I should be aiming for a tighter fit?

I prefer the plastic, numbered, expanding bands. We have tried the ones that slide and clip into place, but I don't like that they can't expand, or tear and pull-away if they get caught on something in the yard. I don't mind if we lose bands. They can be replaced.

I'd be interest to know how the wing bands work for you.

I just bought 500 aluminum custom stamped leg bands, 5 different colors each numbered from 1-100. I had them stamped Home Grown Poultry. I also bought the pliers and 2 toe punches. Things are getting serious real quick over here! All from ebay... man our dollar is way down! total was was $136.89 USD which converted to $191.03 CAD. So 38 cents a band... Not bad.

Bands - http://www.ebay.com/itm/281446928968?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Pliers - http://www.ebay.com/itm/311035537617?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

Toe Punch - http://www.ebay.com/itm/281876445955?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

I have used Ketchum wing bands and leg bands since the 80 s . One color for each breeding pen ,I put pullets back in the pen with there mothers after culling . All chicks are toe marked wing bands go in at culling time and a sealed leg band also. I have never lost a wing band in all the years Ive used them . Just this year I found a new toe punch that I think is far better than the old style google Twin City Poultry Supplies and have a look.

I recieved my custom legbands, pliers and toe punches in the mail yesterday, no duty either!!! Man are they ever awesome!!!

WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!

Im a happy guy!!!

Oh pretty,shiny!

I like those leg bands! I bought cheapo zip tie style bands last year and the numbers wore off within a week. I cut them off not long after that because they were pretty much useless.

I make my own. It is the Scottish ancestry I suppose. I buy rubber tubing of an appropriate size, colour, cut it into bands with a knife. Colour code for year hatched pretty much all of mine. Some times also do particular hatches, who the roo was or some such. Not high teck, but works for me to age them for sure, and other stuff as per my own coding system that I forget. But its that blue hen with the green band. Also right or left leg twigs a particular thing. So, green band on right leg means they were from the blue americauna roo that I had last year. I did try large drinking straws, and they were ok, but chafed a little some times and some disintegrated. better quality drinking straws at the store instead of from Mac's disposable helped too.