It's More Than Just a Brand....

"Cowboys branding their calves on Roundup"

When many people think of the wording branding an animal, they tend to take two different understandings to it. A person from an urban area would understand it as a mean thing that ranchers do to calves, and than there would be the rural population who know it as a cattle identification system.

With each brand there comes a symbol. That symbol has a story behind it of why that symbol is used to represent that ranch. Our ranch's symbol is 3 over N on the right rib. It's this because on our ranch we have my grandpa, dad, and uncle who all run it. With our last name being Nixdorff, 3 over N is meant to be "the three Nixdorff's". That's how our brand came to be.

There are many other brands with many different stories behind them. Now for the main reason that we brand our cattle. We brand our calves in the Spring to prevent things like stealing, or cattle getting mixed up and lost in someone else's herd. It can be frustrating for ranchers when a fence is destroyed or something happens where their cattle can not easily  be found. Branding can help be a stress reliever and make getting your cattle back a whole lot easier. There have been many incidents where this has happened and people have gone to market trying to sell an animal that is not theirs. Right away before an animal is sold a brand inspection is always needed. A lot of lost or stolen animals have been returned to their rightful owners because of this.

There is many other things that people do to keep their cattle identified. For instance freeze branding, tagging, and tattooing. The only problem with these methods is that a person can destroy them and make them not readable. Yes, a freeze brand can not be destroyed but you must remember that freeze branding is no easy task and for a rancher with 100's cattle it just is not the prime option. Therefore branding is the smartest way for ranchers!

I hope you have learned a little bit of why we brand our cattle, and that a brand is much more than just a brand but a symbol of a ranch. Next time you see a brand or animal remember that it was not put their just for show or to cause harm for an animal but because it is used to identify cattle and keep them obtained to their rightful owners. Branding has been around for many years and still continues to be a successful way to keep our cattle identified!