'Potentially' defective farm product

Nao57

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So ...as a disclaimer I'm not making a public statement. I'm only stating 'my personal belief'. It is my 'belief' or 'opinion' that poultry leg bands (colored bands for marking) should not be used for medium and large sized ducks. PERIOD.

One of my peking ducks had an injured leg. I went out to treat it. It was my belief that the drake had been romping on her too roughly. I started treating it....

And in the process I see that the poultry leg band markers I had on her were cutting into her leg because she'd gotten so big. So I went and cut it off.

But then I had a feeling I should check all the other peking ducks also. And it turns out that every peking duck I had with poultry leg bands on them have injured legs, for those that had any kind of colored band on them.

I hope they'll heal up and be OK.

But these bands should probably not be used for ANY adult poultry at all, and only for immature chucks and ducklings that are younger than 2 or 3 months. And the packages should state as such. I also think especially peking and rouen ducks would be the most at risk, since they tend to get the biggest.

I was surprised that their legs were hurt by these. And its my fault for noticing it sooner. I really wish I'd thought of checking them sooner, but they seemed so happy until I spotted that one that I had no idea it was bothering them.

:(
 

Beekissed

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Why are you banding them....for separating into breeding groups or different lines of offspring from breeding pairs?
 

Nao57

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Initially I had a hard time with certain species in learning which were male and female.

I'm kind of getting the hang of that now. But when I first started this its too hard to when you have quite a few of them always moving at the same time. And white pekings, all look the same so much also.

I think there's probably other people also that are trying to figure this out also.
 

rachels.haven

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Colored zip ties loose enough to not go over their "thumbs" and cut off make better leg bands once they are mature. They are also less expensive and come in just as many colors. I've never messed with the actual leg bands in all my years of poultry or waterfowl keeping.
 

Beekissed

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Yep....zip ties are what I use to mark poultry. Easy to use, easy to take off and put on a bigger one, etc.
 

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