Branding Traditions

[TexasBred]

Those old time branding sound like a lot of fun. 30 years ago I use to help a neighbor who had around 300 head of cross bred cattle, all with big horns. It was an all day job even when they were penned and run through the chute...worming, vaccinating and branding. Summer sausage, cheese and beer for lunch was the total payment for the help. Really was a good leaning experiment.

I just run cattle through the chute one at a time. This is one time I do actually catch the head in the headgate. Everything is branded, vaccinated, sprayed for flies, wormed and bull calves are castrated (knife) standing up.

 

[Shanghai]

TB that's the way is was with m family working cattle except without the cheese and crackers
It was hurry up so we can get through and you were lucky to a get a thank you
Edit
Then they'd sent us back to hoe cotton
I'm still po'd today about having hoe cotton
I'd starve before I'd farm cotton now

They never understood why my dad left home to work on ranches when he could have farmed

 

[TexasBred]

TB that's the way is was with m family working cattle except without the cheese and crackers
It was hurry up so we can get through and you were lucky to a get a thank you
Edit
Then they'd sent us back to hoe cotton
I'm still po'd today about having hoe cotton
I'd starve before I'd farm cotton now

They never understood why my dad left home to work on ranches when he could have farmed

There is just something about a hoe. :mrgreen:

 

[backhoeboogie]

TB that's the way is was with m family working cattle except without the cheese and crackers
It was hurry up so we can get through and you were lucky to a get a thank you
Edit
Then they'd sent us back to hoe cotton
I'm still po'd today about having hoe cotton
I'd starve before I'd farm cotton now

They never understood why my dad left home to work on ranches when he could have farmed

I grew up on the end of a dang hoe. Swore I would never own a garden. Never have either. Course I swore I would never own a cow or milk one. Here I am.

Dad's gardens were always 5 times bigger than they had to be. We canned all the veggies we could and gave baskets of veggies away at the church. Couldn't people just come and pick it for themselves?

You take the number of rows and divide it by 6 days in a week. That was the number of rows I had to hoe each day. If I had football games on Friday night, I'd better hoe twice as much Thursday night after practice.

There were rings of pipe welded to a horizontal plate at the garden corner post. Right next to the gate. Hoes were hung in the rings. They all had to be sharpened each and every Saturday. It was a ritual.

 

[Calhoun Farm]

What's the point of branding when you can ear tag? Just curious...

 

[Sunfish]

What's the point of branding when you can ear tag? Just curious...

Eartags aren't a permanent form of identification in such the case of theft

 

[grubbie]

I've done it with a rope and a wood fire, I've done it with the calves in a small pen and wrestling them by hand (the most fun), and now we do it on a calf table. I had a lot of brothers, cousins, and neighbors around when I was a kid. We loved to wrestle calves. I am now 50, and I still might do a few just to show the young'uns Im tuff enuff. The calf table is by far the easiest on people, and easiest on calves (I like that part). maybe it's this part of the country, I am an hour west of the original poster, brandings here are a big event. Lots of beer and barbecue after the work is done.