Poultry leg rings are an invaluable tool for poultry keepers

There are a vast array of types of leg rings on the market and they can be used in many ways. Fiona & Hugh Osborne guide you through the choices and applications.

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WHY ARE POULTRY LEG RINGS USEFUL

If you’re new to chicken keeping, or you’ve never wondering what is the point of using leg rings. They can have an essential role to play in managing your flock, but how they are applied is dependent on your flock and what you’d like to achieve.

There are three main reasons to use poultry leg rings, some or all of which may be useful to you.

The first is to identify individual chickens. Where there are a number of hens of the same breed which look relatively alike, it can be difficult to identify individuals and leg rings make this easy. If you have a small number of hens either as pets or in a small flock, it’s easy to pick out a single colour for each hen to help you identify them. This will pay off in the long run, particularly on health grounds. If you notice a limp, a potential parasite infestation, a lump or a whole array of health concerns, being able to quickly identify the bird affected is invaluable.

The second is to identify the age of the birds. If you’re keeping much larger groups of poultry, it may be much easier to allocate a single colour to an age group. This may be a single colour per clutch that you hatch, or you may choose a single colour allocated to the year in which your poultry hatched. The choice is yours as to which is most useful.