Pliers FAQ

This is a guide to help you decide which, if any, pliers you will need to buy to use our split leg bands. We hope you find it helpful! Remember that we are here Monday through Friday every week to answer your questions.

Guide to Ordering Pliers

First off, let’s discuss what banding pliers are and what they do. Banding pliers are used to clamp split leg bands shut onto a bird’s leg so that the bird cannot remove it. They are also sometimes used to open the split band prior to clamping it on the leg. They’ve been used for over a hundred years by banders.

Can’t I just use regular pliers from the hardware store?

Sometimes, but banding pliers are specialized to make closing bands extremely easy and hard to screw up. With regular pliers you can easily make mistakes that could end up costing a bird its leg if not its life. If you are intent on using store-bought pliers, we recommend needle nose for the very small bands and channel lock, water pump, or cannon plug pliers for the large ones. We recommend getting the “soft jaw” versions that won’t scratch the surface. And please practice closing the bands before trying to use them on a bird.

How do they work?

The first step is usually to open up the band (unless it arrived already open, which most do not). For this you can either use special pliers that are made just for this purpose (band-opening pliers) or the “opening pins” on the closing pliers. Not all closing pliers have these opening pins. You can also use store-bought pliers such as needle nose pliers but be careful that you don’t misshape the band in the process.

Once the band is opened just enough to go around the bird’s leg, it is placed in the hole and just enough pressure is applied to keep it from falling out. It is placed around the bird’s leg and the pliers are squeezed shut.

Single-hole, double-hole, triple-hole: what do these terms mean?

Each hole is sized to perfectly close a specific size of our leg bands. For example, a 5.5mm single-hole plier will perfectly close one of our 5.5mm leg bands. It will not work on any other size, and it may not work on a different company’s 5.5mm leg band. A double-hole plier simply has two different sizes of holes, which can close two different sizes of bands.

You sell your own pliers as well as Stauffer-Henley pliers, how do I know which to get?

Stauffer-Henley is a Canadian company that, in my opinion, makes the best banding pliers in the world. They made all our pliers up until 2025, when the tariffs took effect and made them unaffordable for some of our customers. We wanted to offer a lower-cost alternative, and so we started making our own pliers here in the US. However, there are some limitations on what we can do. We can make pliers for only small bands, no larger than 8mm. Also, we can’t currently make triple-hole pliers, nor can we make double-hole pliers with opening pins attached. Stauffer-Henley makes pliers for aluminum bands as large as 22mm, or stainless steel bands as large as 16mm.

Can I use Tall pliers for Short bands and vice versa?

Yes, generally. It is slightly easier to use tall bands in tall pliers, and short bands in short pliers (which is why we offer both), but it’s doable either way. I will say that I would rather use a tall band in short pliers rather than a short band in tall pliers.

Can I use a specific size hole with both aluminum and stainless steel bands?

We don’t recommend it, but it’s not always impossible. The outer diameter would need to be roughly the same for the aluminum and stainless steel bands, and this is only true with 5mm, 5.5mm, 8mm and 9mm bands. Even then, there is usually a small difference in outer diameter, so the gap of the band once closed may be bigger than desired. Also, 8mm and 9mm stainless steel bands are 1.5mm thick, and the pliers meant for aluminum bands may not have sufficient force to close them properly.

Other companies sell pliers that work for a wide range of sizes, and for much cheaper than you. Why can’t you?

It’s not that we can’t, it’s that we won’t. We’ve tried all those pliers that have two or three holes but can close ten different band sizes, and we’ve also tried the pliers that have ten holes. We not only were unimpressed with all of them, we found them dangerous and likely to lead to a bird’s injury. The pliers that we sell may be more limited and more expensive, but we sleep easy at night knowing that they’re safe, effective and easy to use.