leg band identification ideas

[haemma]

hello everyone! I feel overwhelmed when thinking about banding my birds. I want a way to tell male/female and to tell their offspring as they get older. So far my zebs have only raised one little girl, she now looks just like momma. However the end of her middle toe is missing on one foot so I can tell which is which when together. Those same parents are sitting on 6 eggs right now and I know that I have to find a way to tell them apart at some point, I dont' want them accidently breeding with each other!! So I was thinking of light pink/light blue for gender but beyond that trying to classify them I get overwhelmed just thinging about how to go about it. Any ideas would be great!! Thanks! Kelley

[ikhom]

Hi Kelley:
I see you don't have many birds; so I would suggest to use split bands of different colors. I myself don't have many birds, so I know all my birds well and just identifying them by color of their bands is good enough for me. Some of the members who have bigger stocks use more sophisticated identification systems with two-colors bands and multiple bands. But I don't see any reasons doing this in your case.
You can purchase mix colors bands from different retailers at cheap price. If you want to use permanent band you should join NFSS or local club associated with them.

[Sally]

Here is a good article on banding: http://www.finchinfo.com/breeding/leg_b ... eeping.php

When I had a few birds, I just assigned a color to each pair, i.e. pair #1 was yellow, pair #2 was red, pair #3 was blue, etc. The parents had their bands on the left leg--their babies had their bands on the right leg. I could tell at a glance then that a certain bird that had a red band on its right leg was out of pair #2, so it could be paired with a bird with a yellow or blue band. This is assuming that all the parent pairs are unrelated.

A lot of people order split plastic bands that have numbers, so they can keep track of individual birds, because with just the color, pretty soon you could have a bunch of birds that all have yellow leg bands on the right leg, but you really don't know which clutch they came from (so you don't know exactly how old they are).

As far as sex, you have mostly dimorphic species, which means the males and females don't look alike. For monomorphic species, like Owls, I use pink bands for girls and light blue bands for boys (and I never use those colors for family bands, only to denote sex). This really helps with the Societies!

[ac12]

I use 2 split bands
- On the left leg is a numbered band color coded by year. Example 2009 is yellow, and 2010 is black. Each year I start over at #1
- On the right leg is a colored band corresponding to the last/units digit of the number. Example red is #2, or #12, or #22. I tried 2 bands, the 2nd band for the 10s position, so I could read the full number, but the 2nd band took up too much space on the leg, so I removed that band.
I use the standard electronic color code, so I don't have to reinvent a color code
0 = black
1 = brown
2 = red
3 = orange
4 = yellow
5 = green
6 = blue
7 = violet/purple
8 = gray
9 = white

Gouldians I can wait till the day they fledge. At that age, they are so mellow that I have been able to just grab them off the perch.

Zebras are a totally different story. I try to band them about 9 days old, while they are still in the nest and easily handled. I found that once they fledge, they are very skittish, and VERY FAST. So catching them becomes a traumatic experience for them.

[haemma]

Thank You!! You made me realize that I haven't updated my footer
We now have 13 zebras, 5 societies, 3 RCCBs, 2 shaft-tails, 4 orange cheeks, 1 gloster canary, 1 crested gloster canary, 2 orange weavers, 3 gouldians. And my zebs are currently sitting on 7 eggs! (that will be another post) So I do like the idea of being able to distinguish the clutchs also, but I want to do the split bands. It seems that the double color bands would offer more versatility but also more headache in figuring out how to assign the colors!
Also does it bother the birds more having 2 bands rather than just one?

[bluebutterfly213]

I have been using this system for well over a year now and find its really simple. Its Michael Marcotrigiano's from exotic finches. Each colour represents a number. e.g.
1 = brown
2 = purple
3 = blue
4 = green
5 = red
6 = orange
7 = pink
8 = yellow
9 = white

For bird number 1 it would be nothing on the left leg (as the bird faces you) and brown on the right.

For bird number 2 it would be nothing on the left leg (as the bird faces you) and purple on the right.

brown on the left leg and purple on the right that bird is number 12,
purple on the left leg and brown on the right leg that bird is number 21,
then you go to your written notes for the bird.

I remember the system by thinking of adding up in "tens (left leg) and units (right leg)"
As Michael explains there are some numbers you cant use, mainly those with a zero in the middle or at the end, 101 etc and 120, 130 etc. He dosnt use those numbers because he wanted to keep the number of legs rings to a minimum. His system runs on 9 different colours, but if you wanted to use 10 colours you could use the 101 etc numbers.

I have only ever had one bird that seemed distracted by the leg bands, she kept looking at her legs and stamping her feet. So I took them off her. All the other are quite accepting of them.

[ac12]

@blue
If you look at my color scheme, you have a 10th color for the digit 0.

@Kelly
How accepting of the band the bird will be depends. I had one bird that kept trying to take the band off. He would bite the band and PULL !!! He pulled so hard that he would pull his leg out from under himself and flip over. I felt sorry for him. Eventually, they all get used to the bands.
That is one advantage of banding them on while they are still in the nest. They don't remember ever having been w/o a band.

So virtually all of my birds have 2 bands, one on each leg.
I thought about the 2-color bands, but stocking all the different color combos would get EXPENSIVE.

Another tactic is to modify what I do and to keep separate numbering sequences for each TYPE of bird. So you would have several #1; a zebra, a society, a RCCB, a shaft-tail, etc. This would give you 99 birds before you run out of 2 band combinations.

Here a 2-color band would help. Use a 2-color; example BLACK as the top color = 100, then the bottom color would be the 10s. You would need 9 different combinations of black. You can't use the 10th as you cannot tell the difference between a single color black = 1x and a black+black = 11x, so you have to skip a sequence of 10 digits. Similarly when you hit 220, 330, etc.

[haemma]

this is really great imfor thanks!!
One other question, has anyone ever tried writing a number on the bands with a sharpie? It might just rub off or scrape off maybe, don't know.

[lovemyfinch]

this is really great imfor thanks!!
One other question, has anyone ever tried writing a number on the bands with a sharpie? It might just rub off or scrape off maybe, don't know.

I tried using the sharpie with my first clutch of gouldians. Needless to say the written number is no longer there. Good thing for me that they do not look similar in any way. I am now using closed bands.

[ac12]

@haemma
I recommend using the prenumbered bands. The numbers they print don't come off...so far. And it is a pretty tiny band to try to write onto.

[bluebutterfly213]

@blue
If you look at my color scheme, you have a 10th color for the digit 0.

I saw that you use the 10 colours, that would make it really easy.

I just followed Michael's lead in using the 9 colours. He said when he wanted to band his birds his leg band supplier only did the 9 colours and when they increased the range he made the decision to stay with the 9 due to cost and the amount of bands a bird with a high number would be carrying.

I like the idea of the numbered bands too, but I need glasses for reading as it is so I doubt I would be able to see the numbers even if the birds held out their leg at the wire for me to look at "Come in number 12, your cage awaits you".......

I hve been toying with the idea of closed, coloured, metal bands lately, but the ones I saw on a few birds at a sale seems to have a tag that stuck out a bit, so more research required there. Also dont know how I would feel about putting a band on the leg that requires a bit of pressure, I would be devastated if anything went wrong...... I dont even want to consider what could go wrong.

[ac12]

Diane
I think I had to use 2 or 3 different suppliers to get the 10 colors that I wanted. Some had 10 different colors, but I would have to use a different color scheme than the color code that I am already familiar with.

As I recall he had 2 band on one leg, one being the NFSS band.
A method that I thought about was to use the color of the NFSS band as part of the color coding. Each year the NFSS band changes color, so you can restart the sequence from #1, and use the NFSS band as a year indicator. The problem here is if you purchase a bird with a closed band...now what?

Also this has 2 bands on one leg. I had a couple birds that the 2 split bands took up soo much height on their leg that they had problems. I think one had dirt or poop get under the band, and w/o the slack to move up/down the poop got wedged under the band and the foot got swollen. So now I only use ONE band on each leg. That is until I can find a smaller band that will not take up so much space on their leg. At that time I might consider going back to 2 bands on a leg.

You have a point. Only having one band that matches the units digit has lead to a few times where I got a couple birds mixed up, both with red bands, for #2 and #12. And both were female gray zebras, so I could not tell them apart visually.

[bluebutterfly213]

Our conversations on this topic got me thinking so........

Yesterday I experimented with the leg rings I have by cutting some of them in half. I will trial them on the next clutch of young that fledge.

I cut one with a Stanley knife/box cutter type knife, the other with scissors, the knife gave a cleaner cut.

I dont know how visible these will be in the aviary yet, but they will certainly allow for two rings on one leg without any discomfort for the bird.

Advantages so far
More options for colour banding
Less bulk on a birds leg
Cheaper

Disadvantages so far
Having to cut all the rings

[ac12]

After you cut the band, check the inside of the ring for any plastic that has been pushed in. It could create a sharp burr that would injure the leg.

[bluebutterfly213]

The scissors created some burrs but the knife worked a lot better. I didnt see any burrs on them but I used a small nail file just in case.

Each year the NFSS band changes color, so you can restart the sequence from #1, and use the NFSS band as a year indicator. The problem here is if you purchase a bird with a closed band...now what?

Just a thought on this problem, even if cutting the bands down wont work on a large scale it might just do the job for any purchased birds that already have leg bands of any kind.