It seems like I have branded every way possible at one time or another. I've necked them and tied them down for a britch'n brand, drug them to Nordforks and sets of wrestlers, pushed to a table once and even walked into a huge pen and grabbed them with a partner. The one thing that stands out in my mind is a well planned and ran branding is always fun and efficient. I don't believe you should ever rope at your own branding, unless circumstance dictates it. The person in charge should run the crew, when I am that person I keep things running and fill vaccine guns and maybe help cut a few calves if a person gets behind. Most of the time if you are waiting at a branding it is because someone ran out of vaccine or the guy in charge did not think about who he was putting in to rope. I know people who just throw ropers in there without any thought, inevitably a pen full of poor ropers rope together and a pen full of good ropers rope together. Everyone still gets to rope but it takes twice as long as it should, because you only have so many wrestlers for the good ropers to drag to and the poor ropers keep wrestlers waiting. I don't generally mind if I don't get to rope at someone else's branding, I have roped at brandings for better than 30 yrs and have a fair amount of experience and knowledge. One thing that really bothers me is when a person running a crew doesn't run it efficiently, my time is valuable to me even if it is not worth anything to anyone else, especially since I have kids. Sometimes you just have bad days, but when you are not well prepared and the neighbors have to basically jump in and take over it doesn't set well with me. I go to a branding where the owner just isn't good at getting things going and everyone knows it so someone usually just starts sorting cattle and getting the fire and vaccine ready and he will usually line out a crew finally. Everyone knows what to expect and things go pretty well. At other branding the boss wants to be in charge and not make a decision and it takes all day to brand what should take a few hours, that kinda gets under my skin. I have seen a crew brand over 700 hd in less than a couple of hours and I've seen them take all day to brand 250. Having the right size crew and knowing how to run them seems to be the difference between a good day and a bad one. Branding season is my favorite time of year.