Deciding on a brand?

[xbred]

can you get a good brand on a yearling or heavy cow in a squeeze chute? or do you have to stretch them out on the ground?

 

[dun]

Depnds on how well the cute restrains them and where the brand is being put. The few folks I know around here that brand do it in the chute.

 

[HobbyFarm]

had a horse once that the micro-chip kept moving, so I had her branded (freeze branded) with a Lightning Bolt with my initials on each side. Freeze branding healed nice, white hair grows back after healing. Takes about a month for you to be able to see the brand clearly. Horse never moved so I "ass-u-me" that it didn't hurt her.

 

[Texas Gal]

Slightly off topic but talking about brands and families made me think about this...

anybody remember the old wife's tale about branding during a waxing moon?

 

[3waycross]

Slightly off topic but talking about brands and families made me think about this...

anybody remember the old wife's tale about branding during a waxing moon?

We always worked cows by the moon but it was more about the dehorning and castrating than the branding.

 

[mac]

Never heard about doing it by moon cycles, but our wranglers don't like to castrate and de-horn if it is really hot, not for their own sake but for the sake of the calves bleeding and healing up. As for the branding, if we buy heifers at the sale, our wrangler takes the brand with him and doctors and brands them in his trailer before they touch hoof to ground. Sometimes if the pens are sloppy when we work calves, they will work the calves in the trailer, too. Normally, we crowd half a dozen into a long chute to vaccinate. In the fall, we borrow a squeeze chute to palpate, check their mouths, sort culls, brand heifers we decide to keep and do ear tags. We have had the same two wranglers for years and it is an amazing dance to watch. They definitely earn their money.

 

[Earl Thigpen]

Dun (and others), you are sure right about the closed figures on the brand. Mine is N boxed T where the "T" is inside a box and one leg of the "N" is formed by one side of the box. Whole thing is about 4 1/2" square and I have three animals where their brand is "blank" N. The hide inside the box came off altogether. Dang it.

I don't remember my Dad having that problem nor his Dad. But then I do remember them taking the animal's tail and kinda twisting it and bringing it up over their back while branding. Said it kinda numbed their butts and they didn't move around so much.

This brand has been in the family for four generations and was Nathan Thigpen's brand. It is registered in Lavaca County, Texas