Happy New Year from National Band!

happy new year 2017To give our employees a much needed break after a very busy year, we are not working this week in celebration of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. We hope you are having a fantastic holiday season as well, and we’ll see you in the New Year!

In case you missed our blog two weeks ago, we reviewed our year and highlighted some exciting achievements from 2016. Let us know what you’d like to see in 2017 — blog ideas, tag ideas, identification ideas, etc.

Happy New Year!

New! Shorter Bird Band Height

Do you use our 1242 Size 22 butt-end bird bands? You may be interested to know that we’ve created a new shorter version of the same band–Style 1242-22Z. For birds that have shorter legs, this band might be just what you need. It is the same price and inside/outside diameter as the original 1242-22, just 1/8″ shorter.

short bird band

Interested in a sample? Ready to order? Call us! 859-261-2035

 

A Look Back at 2016

It has been an exciting and busy time here at National Band & Tag this year! Besides growing our product lines, we also grew our business with the acquisition of Hasco Tag Company back in May. We are very excited to welcome all our new Hasco customers to the National Band & Tag family, and look forward to providing everyone with identification solutions in 2017!

employees 2016 web

While everyone is excited for New Year’s, first, let’s look back at some of the highlights of 2016:

New Products

  • 505 Ear Tags – This new metal, self-piercing ear tag is the perfect size for sheep, goats, deer, and swine. This ear tag is also used as a Scrapie ear tag for sheep, and is approved by the USDA.
  • Asset Labels – Made of a Military grade 3M™ 7847 polyacrylic matte black stock, labels can be laser cut into any shape or size up to 6” inches. They are completely customizable with logos, text, barcodes and more.
  • Flex-Lok – Hasco’s plastic ear tag line is still available through NB&T.
  • Napkin Rings – Custom napkin rings are perfect for weddings, holiday gifts, and more.
  • New Dog & Cat Tags – We have converted some of Hasco’s dies over and they now have new NB&T style numbers.
  • HIN Tags – Replacement tags should you lose the original or get a new HIN (Hull Identification Number)
  • 1242-22S – A new shorter version of the 1242-22 aluminum Butt-End Band

New Colors

  • Pink Vinyl – Vinyl plant and tree labels are now available in pink!
  • Turquoise Aluminum – Rabies tags, some industrial tags, and butt-end bands are all now available in turquoise!

New Family Member

Back in August we welcomed our 11th family member to the team, Ryan Haas has taken on a sales and account manager role here at NB&T and we look forward to seeing his work next year.

tag makers

Please note our holiday hours: We will be closed the week between Christmas and New Year’s (December 26th – 30th). Have a safe and happy holiday season!

The Bird is the Word

We love seeing pictures from customers of our tags in use, which is why #BirdBanding is one of NB&T’s favorite hashtags on Twitter! We saw lots of tweets this past year of people sharing their bird banding adventures, whether it be collecting data for research, educating others about birds or sharing their banding accomplishments. After going through old tweets, we narrowed it down to NB&T’s top 10 favorite bird banding tweets from 2016!

 

10.) Check out the yellow on this Warbler’s belly! This is also a great demonstration of a bird bander’s hold.

tweet 10
9.) How could we not love this awesome pictures showing the wide berth of sizes that we offer, all about to go into action on multiples species?

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8.) Bands are used often for tracking purposes, epically in migratory birds like geese! This is a great shot of the applicator being used to put the band on.

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7.) Another use of bands is to label the hatch year, or the year they were born, to help track age down the road.

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6.) It’s a huge accomplishment getting your first Peregrine Falcon! This bird of prey is the fastest bird in the world with the highest recorded speed being over 200 MPH.

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5.) We always enjoy when people find their jobs to be fun! And cranking out 150 banded geese is impressive.

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4.) We get to see lots of pictures of smaller birds, ducks and geese banded, so this Green Heron is quite the treat!

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3.) Look at those little feet indeed! This is a great example of a band on a string versus the band on the actual bird. Thanks PA Deer Research for all your great pictures.

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2.) We always enjoy when children get to learn about birds and other wildlife. Getting to hear the heart rate of a bird is quite the opportunity!

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1.) The US Fish and Wildlife tweeted a blog post that is extremely informational about bird banding. How it works, the history of it, the oldest banded bird, reporting found bands and information on how you too can become a bander. https://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm/2016/9/6/Birdbanding

tweet 1

 

Don’t forget to follow National Band & Tag on Twitter!