Types of Cattle Brands

Cattle branding might seem like a practice of the long-ago Wild West, but the need to establish livestock ownership is still a necessity in areas where the animals graze over large areas. While livestock branding has been practiced for thousands of years, modern ranchers have several methods of marking their cattle.

  1. History

    • The need to identify ownership of farm animals dates back hundreds of years. The earliest evidence of branding is in Egyptian tomb paintings from 2700 B.C. that depict oxen being branded using fire-heated metal. Greeks and Romans also used hot-brand techniques on their livestock. The Spanish were the first to bring the practice to the Americas in the 16th century, and their brand designs were often so elaborate they were difficult to decipher.

    Heat

    • The most well-known type of cattle brand is created by using a hot iron. Until later innovations like tattooing, this was the only way to mark an animal for life. The typical method of applying the brand involves either restraining a calf in a chute or tying it with ropes, and pressing a heated iron with the owner's specific design onto the animal's skin to cause a scar. In the past the iron was heated in a fire; however, today's cattle owners often use electric branding irons. Cattle are typically branded on their left side near the hip.

    Cold

    • The freeze brand is a modern way of marking cattle that does not cause scarring on animals' skin. Using liquid nitrogen or dry ice and alcohol, the branding iron is super-cooled and pressed to an area of the calf's skin that is clipped or shaved. This alters the pigment in the hair, causing it to grow back in as white. If pressed for a longer period of time onto a lighter colored hide, the brand will cause hair to not grow back in. Freeze brands are not accepted in all states as a means of cattle identification.

    Alternative Methods

    • Cattle owners now have several methods of marking their animals that don't require the traditional hot brand, or even a freeze brand. Tattooing an animal's inner lip is one way, while cutting notches in a calf's ear is another method to show who owns the animal. Metal or plastic ear tags are commonly used on cattle but can be altered, removed or damaged. Microchips with information that can be read externally by a hand-held scanner can be inserted under the animal's skin.