I had to recruit help. With the addition of my new young hens, I’m getting eggs once again and I’m thrilled. But as I let them out into their new pen, I noticed a couple were limping. We had used a chicken hook to catch them the other day… had we hurt them? No. As they walked away, I could see that their leg bands were too tight. Well, I was headed off to work cows and I’d correct that when I got home.
Back home in mid afternoon, I took a closer look. Nine of my eleven new hens had leg bands. Two were really bad. I knew I couldn’t hold the chicken and pry the band off by myself, Vernon was still down at the other place, so I went and asked for Megan’s help. Lorelei is always up for veterinary work, so she came too.
It’s definitely a two person job. Those first two hens were in bad shape, with wonderful smelling pus where their legs were infected. Leg bands are used as a marker for age in mixed flocks, different colors for different years. They come in different sizes as well. They’re made to expand and grow with the bird, but these bands hadn’t, cutting off circulation and the sharp ends were digging into their skin.
I hadn’t noticed when we’d caught them to bring here, but it was very evident in daylight. Then I began to wonder if my neighbor where I’d got these hens would be in the same predicament. After removing them from my new girls, we drove over and volunteered to check the neighbor’s as well. We were already gross and had the system down… me catching the hens and Megan and Lorelei removing bands. While the neighbor didn’t have any bad ones yet, the bands were getting tight so we removed them preventatively!
For those of you out there that band your chickens, you might want to check and make sure they’re still loose enough! I’m not sure if my volunteers will be willing to do that again… my fifteen minutes of help turned into much more! And it was gross. But the chickens and my help seem to be recovering well…
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