“These are the times that try men's souls.” | Like stated before the brand is proof of ownership. Well you would like to have the brand tied up so you had it covered over all of the animal, and also all the different variations of it. The problem began when a city idiot buys a ranchette, then thinks he needs to mark all their property with a brand. So they pick a familiar brand that represents their last name that a rancher already has registered. Then the bidding war begins, and the city idiot will pay rancher an obscene price for his brand so he can put it on his front gate and barn etc.
Wife's granddad forgot to re register his brand, and lost it. It was a just a plain circle, I would have loved to kept that brand with the ranch! We still have one of his old branding irons and use it when we shoulder brand bulls for proof of age of breeding bulls. We put the circle and a number for the year of bull put in service as a 2 year-old. So all new two-year old bulls in 2013' get a zero or circle then a 3 below it on right shoulder. Then the next year all new bulls will get a zero and a 4 brand.
This way all the ranches here know at a glance you aren't running a old bull on you, everybody in our valley does it. We run them for 4 years, then sold. So all bulls in this valley packing a zero nine where sold. It is nice because you can try to keep all the ear tags records you want, but bulls fight and rub and lose more tags than cows.
We run in common with others, and bulls are judged by a committee before turn out. And even those that don't run in common together, we run next to you like to have everybody on the same page on breeding bulls. Because the mix and tear fences up, and walk for miles sometimes.
One thing I love about brands is when I ride into a guys herd that runs next to me and I see his bulls packing a registered breeders brand, it lets me know my cows got bred by a registered bull, not just something he raised out of one of his cows. |
Why are Brands for sale?
