Aussie Finch Forum

If you need to move some chicks form one nest to another that are too small to ring, anybody got any good, safe ways of marking them ? so you can keep track for breeding records / splits ect.

In the past I used to breed heaps of budgies and used permanent texta on chicks so I could move them around different nests. Not really sure if it's an ok thing to do but it never seemed to cause any issues.

We use non-toxic long lasting nail polish on their toes- it does need to be reapplied as can rub off as the chick moves in the nest.

Wonder if you could use Food Colouring? They do that on day old chickens at easter time

Nail varnish idea sounds good. Plenty of colour choice and the local cheap places usually have some of the fluro colours going out cheap. Painting all the toenails would give a good margin of error.
Just dont let any of your mates catch you checking out the colours in the nail varnish section!

I use textas on my Quarrions crests without any problems ...even had a prospective customer ask how much the red headed one was

For those guys looking for cheap nail varnish...sorry couldnt resist putting that in the post!
I just got these from Coles.
Very fluro green, pink and yellow, going to have some very punk rock gouldians...hopefully.
Pic doesn't really do the colours justice, the colours are just like the work wear fluro colours.
EDIT..... would be good idea if I put in how much they cost. $2 each

BB is gonna have the trendiest finches in SA .
Now they just need some bling

hi Diane,

i am guessing your going to try and mark the possible split blues with the white nodules (from a split to split pair) when they are 1-3 days old? before they supposedly change to normal mouth markings?

misso

bluebutterfly213 wrote:Nail varnish idea sounds good. Plenty of colour choice and the local cheap places usually have some of the fluro colours going out cheap. Painting all the toenails would give a good margin of error.
Just dont let any of your mates catch you checking out the colours in the nail varnish section!

only problem i could see with this, would be the babies being soo small they haven't got toe nails yet, and if you go with a fluro colour, will gouldian parents notice it and want to throw the fluro mark out, hence babies being thrown?

just thinking

misso