Closed Bands

from what iu have read bands are mainly for the breeders records, so each band might only make sense to the breeder arlene came from??

Hi,

From what I know about bands (which isn't much) usually the first one or two letters is the state in which bird was banded FL-Florida T-Texas NY- New York and so on and the next letter or two is the breeders initials for Aviary then there is two numbers which are the hatch yr. I THINK....I have also seen them where the state abbr. is sideways. I did search this number for you in the Nation Band Registry and come up with nothing...good luck and congrats and your new family member.

Angela & Mango

Unless there are other numbers/letters/symbols on it, it does not look like one of the major band-types, so as suebee said, it may not mean much of anything.

Are there any letters running vertically on the band, or anything else that may have been missed?

If a band is ordered from any of the 3 manufacturers, the year will be separate and only the last two digits, (if the breeder says they want the year.) The letters and numbers can be anything. I keep mine simple (or did back when I used bands). For a while mine read CIH (insert baby number), another number that identified the breeding pair baby came from and then the year.

The bad news is that anyone can call and order bands with any combonation of stuff on it. I can have all my bands EXACTLY the same.... SOA08881 if I wanted. Sorry but if a breeder doesn't want to be found through his bands he won't. Another (big breeder) could help.... oftentimes we recognize eachothers bands. But I don't band babies at all anymore....

There are databases for the two main band suppliers. But this band does not match either of their formats.

If you can track down the supplier of the band they could probably get you some information - at least who the band was sold to (the breeder). But I wouldn't have a clue how to track down the manufacturer of the band.

The 887 is not likely a year ... if it is your parrot is VERY old indeed!

Bands never have birth/hatch date, but they sometimes have the year that the band was issued. In general this would be the hatch year, or possibly the year before hatching. But in this case the 887 just looks like a serial number: this was the 887th bird that was banded in batch DHBB.



As for inbreeding - breeders do keep track. But the later owners may not have that information. So it is *possible* that one could have bought a bird from a breeder, then latter decided to breed them, found another bird of the same species who *coincidentally* came from the same breeder *and* was a sibling to the first bird.

The odds of this, of course, are very slim - and first generation inbreeding really isn't a problem.

Random chance would keep sufficient outbreeding levels.