Oldtimer
Well-known member
memanpa":2b7fa41g said:oldtimer
correct me if i am wrong
a BRAND is used to prove ownership? not indentifcation!
are your eartags so unique that no one else could ever have them?
let me give you a possible scenero that FAULTS your claim that
your cattle are traceable back to you, keep in mind that this is only a possible situation!
1: you sell a cow calf pair (branded tagged and inspected to an out of state buyer)
2: out of state buyer crosses 3 state lines (LEAGALLY) and arrives at his/her destination never rebranded
3: said cow/calf pair escapes and wonders into a different county and is found by someone who keeps them for a while and that person sells them to private treaty no inspection
4: the new owner smiles when they notice the brand on the animal is the same as thiers they remove the eartag replace it with ther own at this point traceability is lost is it not?
not saying this happened just saying it could happen so your traceability with brand and eartag is FAULTED
BRANDS are only proof of ownership in a specific local ONLY, not from state to state!!
I guess a coincidence where the animal ended up with the same brand does occur on occasion- probability is probably less than the retention rate loss on the M-ID tags....
The brand system will only work if you use it- same as the ID system will only work if the owner keeps records....In Montana that cow would not have been able to be sold by the person running astray- it would have been tracked down to its previous owner or been seized as property of the State...You can't sell a cow with a brand that is not yours without having ownership paperwork.....But almost everyone up here rebrands immediately- many times before the cattle leave the salebarn...
The feedlots vaccinate and rebrand calves as they come off the truck....Also if the animal had gone to another brand state like Wyo or ND, the owner would have had to show inspection paperwork in order to resell it each time...
I'm not against ID- in fact I've been a 30+ year proponent of it-- but the system we have has worked great in our state and still does-- I don't think the federal government should be pushing a mandatory system down our throats for instate cattle- for these lazy states that have done absolutely nothing on there own- great, make the state set up a system...Cattle going out of state or into interstate transport- great...But let each state use what works best for them to monitor the instate movement.....
I think you and WORANCH need to go look at the "original" USDA proposal developed by the corporate world and the USDA...Now since they have received opposition they are backing off on a lot of this- calling it "voluntary" and saying that cattle won't have to be IDed until sold, etc. etc.-- but their original plan- which they are still trying to implement, just at a slower rate and now piece by piece, state by state, is much more restrictive........