Freeze branding

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Anyone ever freeze brand? We are attempting it for the first time Saturday, so I am trying to gather information. We are trying it at our vets, since he has a better squeeze chute but he has never freeze branded either. We are using dry ice and 99% alcohol, since they are both easy to get a hold of. Just wondering what experience anyone might be able to add for us.
We are doing a mix, some aged cows down to spring calves. Once we figure it out we will do the rest of the herd. We have three that we need to make sure are done right, since they are being consigned to the Royal sale in November (American Royal). Just looking for advice.
Thanks!

[ohiobeef]

it's been several years since I was involved with it ,but as long as you can hold them fairly still , they turn out good. much better than hot iron branding, good luck !

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Our daughter applying the brand yesterday.


The brand in liquid -dry ice and alcohol


The final product. This was the second animal we did. The cow jumped and the brand was placed a little low.

I guess we will see in a few weeks how it turns out!

[Banjo]

I helped my neighbor Freeze brand some cows a couple of years ago. I thought it was a very slow process,but he put double digit numbers on them so he had to have two irons at a time. I think he had to have someone use a timer cause they had to be held on for a minute or a minute and a half. Just a few wouldn't be bad but I wouldn't want to do a 100 hd.

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

I agree banjo. I figured it took around 10 minutes each head. We did a total of 11 head Saturday, till we ran out of dry ice basically (and everyone was tired). We want to wait a few weeks to see how those turned out, then we will do our other cows when we vaccinate this fall (around 20 more). I think we will wait on the calves until they are weaned or yearlings, depending on if they are shown or sold. I am also concerned at how big the brand is on calves, so in the mix we did yesterday was critters from 6 months to 5 years.
If you did it every year to the calves at weaning, it would not be such a big task. Get it all done at once, there just in the chute a little longer

[hooknline]

Dry ice is getting so hard to find now. A couple places freeze branding with dry ice have switched over to liquid nitrogen instead

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Dry ice is getting so hard to find now. A couple places freeze branding with dry ice have switched over to liquid nitrogen instead

Must be a regional thing. Out here, we found it at local grocery stores. One store has it for 79 cents a pound and the other was 87 cents a pound. Ramey's and Price Cutters... But you had to show your drivers license and sign for it!

[chippie]

How long did you leave the brand on? Chances are the bottom part of the brand where it went on the hair will not show. We will slightly rock a large brand like yours to assure that all edges will get the same amount of pressure. It is easy to get too much at the top and not enough at the bottom.
I use a size 40 surgical blade for clipping.

Here's a good article about it.

http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare ... 250web.pdf

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

We left it on for 60 seconds. I am afraid the bottom part with not show up also, but we did rock the brand while it was on the hide after the animal stopped jumping (usually around 20 seconds). It will be interesting on how it turns out!
Thank you for your advice Chippie. I will read the file later tonight after chores!

[chippie]

Is this the first time that you have used the brand?
I don't know how to say this, and I hope that I don't offend you. Depending on the type of cattle and the hair length and the size of your letters (the F & S), the brand may look a bit blurred.

What looks good on paper, doesn't always look as good when the hair grows back in. My husband and I had a custom freeze branding business and learned that the smaller letters (1 inch) will sometimes look blur when the hair grows in because of the lay and length of the hair.

The frozen area may scab and should peel, leaving an area where the hair will grow in white. If the brand was left on too long, it kills the hair follicle and it will look like a fire brand.

This is a cow that we scarred on purpose:



and horse where it was left on a short time for white hair. the photo is 4 weeks after branding.

[chippie]

this is a 4 inch brand. The S is 2 inches tall.

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

No offense taken. We ordered the brand through L & H, and they were NOT very helpful on creating it. The entire brand is 5 1/2 inches wide, and the letters are an inch each. The only thing the guy told me is that the brand could not be made any smaller (I thought it was too big). But I guess with the Maltese cross (fire fighter cross) it made it difficult to work with. This brand is registered, and depending on how it turns out we may go back to the drawing board. The cattle are black simmentals, so I am not sure how it will look? Does it get blurry because there is too much detail? Would the brand be better without the letters in it?
Another question, since you have done this a lot, why did one branded calf end up with a crusty look, with heat and very tender to touch? Is that a sign it was on too long? He is one that jumped, put his foot through the chute, so we had to stop, release the catch, and then reset him up and start over. A 9 month old bull calf... just wondering why his branded area seems to be more obvious than the others.
We did keep records of age, sex, and length of the brand on contact with skin. I guess in about 4 weeks we will see how they turned out. I think next time we will clip a larger area (and we did use surgical blades).
Thanks for your tips and pics. How hard are horses to do? We have 5, so I have thought about branding them but we do not have chutes to keep them in. How do you subdue them and not get hurt? Will just lip twitching work???
Thanks again

[dun]

Closed areas or areas that have close proximity to toher areas tend to burn out and end up blotched.

[chippie]

We bought our irons from L&H. They are good people. The brand blurs when the hair grows. If the hair is very long, as it grows it lays over the branded area. Smaller brands look best on short haired animals like a horse that has a fine hair coat. We branded a horse for a woman. Her brand incorporated a one inch capital H. When the horse's hair grew in, the bar of the H almost disappeared. It showed clearly when she had her horse body clipped.

This is our oldest daughter's brand (the rocking penguin). It will fit inside a 4 x 4 square. You can sort of see how it distorted when the horse's hair grew back in.

2 weeks after branding:


several months after branding:


Horses require less time than cattle because they have a thinner skin. We used a twitch without any problems, except there have been some horses that are difficult to twitch. They were tranquilized.

Something else that you may not be aware of, is that when you brand a young animal, the brand grows with it. So if you use a large brand like yours on a weanling or yearling, it is going to be huge when the animal is grown. The largest size that we will use on a horse is 4 by 4 inches, and will only brand horses 2 years or older.

This is a good publication about freeze branding horses:

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/files/201 ... orses7.pdf

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Thought I would update some photos. These were taken 48 hours after we branded. I will try to get some more today, since it is a week now. They are starting to peel just a bit, but still very clear what the brand is.
This is an almost two year old half simmental heifer, sired by Upgrade and out of a great angus cow. She is due to calve the end of October. You can see the brand on her shoulder.

This is an April 3/4 blood heifer. Her brand shows up very well. This heifer is bred to Chopper and she is being consigned to the Royal sale in October. Her dam is a half blood by Net Merit.

This is a photo on the cow my daughter did that ended up below the hair line. The cow is laying down in the picture, so her skin looks folded. But this is the one I am most interested in seeing how it turns out since it was in the hairline.


We are hoping for some much needed rain here on Saturday!!!!