animal marking

[poltergeist]

hello you wonderful animal loving bundles of joy. I was thinking about when farmers mark their animals. usually by spray painting them or burning them. well it gort me thinking about how you mark chickens. the most obvious method would to let all the chickens wear ear rings but however alas chickens dont have ears. so how do farmers mark chickens. i must admit the thought of a farm yard of chickens running around with earings is terribly nice.
so how do they mark chickens?

[paddywak]

As you suggested rings are the usual means of identifying birds,but round their legs (not ears) In larger birds such as swans they were marked by nicking the beak. This was the normal practice utill quite recently in Swan Upping when swans on the Thames are identified as belonging to the Queen or the Guilds that have the right to "own" swans on the Thames

[wildwood]

As paddywak (love that handle) chickens are usually IDed with different coloured leg rings [bands]. These rings are basically a piece of 5" pre-stressed plastic that, when let go curls like a slinky, around the leg. Very hard to loose and easy to put on.
These are also split aluminium rings and even permanent whole ones that have to be put on when the chooks are chickens and the legs grow into them. The permanent ones are impossible to remove with breraking the leg and often used with more valuable rare breeds.

Chickens do have ears but they are hidden under feathers and do not have the lobes needed for attaching jewelry :�)
In some asian cultures they decorate their chickens on festive occasions.

[Kleiber]

I use leg rings for my chickens, but only to identify them when they're young (whose chicks they are, etc.) . I know all of them individually and don't need to ring them as they grow up.

[poltergeist]

kleiber if you dont ring them how do you kill them to eat? surely ringing their necks is rather humane and some how theraputic?