With cattle thefts on the rise around the country, more and more cattlemen are returning to the ways of yesteryear by branding their livestock. Branding with either a hot iron or a freeze brand is a permanent way of identifying the animals and serving as proof of ownership in the event the cattle are ever stolen.
My father and I started branding back in the 1960s, primarily as a way to know which were mine and which were his, but it’s a tradition I’ve been proud to continue. Back then, Dad applied a simple “C” to the left hip of his cattle, while mine wore the letter “J” in the same location. We ordered the brands from a farm magazine and chose letter brands because they were the cheapest, but I always admired the more expensive, custom-made brands that could be made to order.
Long-time cattlemen can readily identify some of the more famous brands like the one from the King Ranch that adorns everything from high-end leather furniture to deluxe models of Ford trucks. Even non-farmers of a certain age will remember that the brand from Ben Cartwright’s Ponderosa ranch resembled a pine tree (Ponderosa Pine, no doubt).
Brands don’t have to be fancy or elaborate, but they do have to be unique. A rancher in this state can’t register their brand if someone else already uses that symbol, but I’d sure encourage everyone who raises cattle to get a unique brand and get it registered. I know I’ve done my best to convince neighbors to do so – and some of them, like my friend Ronnie, are really surprising me.
Ronnie is getting on in years and had already retired from the cattle business once. He had been renting his pasture and selling hay for the past few years, but decided to get back into the cattle business last fall. He bought several cow/calf pairs and took them through the winter. I encouraged him to get them branded, but he kept coming up with excuses for why he didn’t. Last Friday morning, as we met for coffee, the elderly gentleman confided that he had begun branding. “Great!” I congratulated him, “What’s your brand look like?”
In a surprisingly quiet and almost secretive manner, he answered, “I’ll show you the design tomorrow.”
Being a man of his word, Ronnie arrived at the coffee shop on Saturday morning, carrying an old, long-tailed, work shirt that I thought I had remembered seeing him wear earlier in the week. He unfolded it carefully to show me and the other men a perfect, two and one-half inch diameter burn hole in the lower left bottom of the back of the shirt. “I guess that’s my brand,” he declared.
On Thursday, he had hired a welder to help him repair some of his metal corrals. After cutting a piece of pipe with a torch, the operator slid it down the work area to cut the other end, not realizing that Ronnie was bent over picking up another piece of pipe. The hot end met Ronnie’s rear end, burning through the shirt, scorching his jeans, and imprinting the perfect “O” on his left hip.
After everyone quit laughing, I asked him if it was going to be the lazy O; or maybe the bar O; or could it possibly even be the crooked O? After pondering the question for a few seconds, Ronnie replied, “Based on my first reaction when I got branded, I guess it would be the O @#$%.”
Jerry Crownover is a farmer and former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University. He is a native of Baxter County, Arkansas, and an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry about his books, or to arrange speaking engagements, you may contact him by calling 1-866-532-1960 or visiting ozarksfn.com and clicking on ’Contact Us.’
