Branding

Every year in the end of May/beginning of June, we hold our branding. We have to put a brand on our cows so in case they get loose and someone finds them, they know who they belong to. Also, we have our cows, FIL's cows, and grandpa's cows all in the same herd. This way we can tell all of them apart. I'll tell most of this story in pictures:

First we have to round up the cows in the fields. A lot of people do this the cowboy way and ride horses and just rope them in the field and brand them right there. We don't. We herd them all under a lean-to so the calves stay dry. We use 4-wheelers and trucks (or pickups, for those of you who speak "farm").


After we get them down to the corrals, we separate the babies from their mothers. If you could imagine, the cows get pissed and moo VERY loudly the whole time. These poor babies look so innocent...they don't know what's about to happen to them!


Then we bring in about 10 calves at a time to a separate holding area right behind the chute.


This is my dad! He got to help out since they were visiting. This was a couple hours before he fell straight forward into the mud...his whole front was covered except for his face! hahaha

These are some of my babies! The one on the right is Justin Beefer's baby.


This is where the action starts. From the back holding pen, one gets put in the chute. Hubs ran them down the chute and through the gate where they ended up in the table-thingy (yes, very technical I know. I don't know the name for it!). Then they flip them horizontally. The bars on the side each come open, so we can vaccinate them with a giant needle and brand them.


This is Ashley comforting the steer as he's getting his balls chopped off. No joke. We (meaning FIL) puts a bunch of disinfectant or something on their "area" then takes a small little exacto knife and cuts off their scrotum. Then he squeezes the testicles out and cuts them off. Then I sprayed with antiseptic so it doesn't get infected. I know you'll be sad to know I didn't get any pictures of those. Don't worry, there's always next year!


If the calvies are sick, we have to give them pills. If you think your daily multi-vitamin pill is big, multiply that by about 10 and that's the size of the pills the calves get. Then we stick them in a hole at the end of this big stick, and shove it down their throats. You can see Ashley holding the end of the stick in her hands as she gives the calf a pill.


Now comes the branding. They take a hot iron that has been sitting in an open blazing flame and stick it on the side of the cow. Can you see the giant needle? Scaaaaaary!


You see the steam in the picture? Yeah, that's burning poo-covered flesh and hair. It smells DELICIOUS. You can never really quite forget such a distinct smell. Also, if you feel like being a little sad, look at the calves' face. Agony!


On our ear tags, my mom had to rewrite some of the tag numbers cause they started coming off.


After they get everything done, they set the table-thingy back vertical and let the calf go free! Here you can see the brand pretty well on this white calf. This is a Diamond M brand.

And lastly, baby Kendall came out to see the cows! She didn't really know what do think:

After we get all of the calves branded, vaccinated, balls chopped off, and pilled, we let them chill out for awhile while we eat lunch. After lunch we send them back in with their moms to pair up. Then we separate different cows/calves into several different pens, depending on where they are going to spend the next month before they go out to summer pasture.

Hope you enjoyed the little branding lesson!