Branding Etiquette

[LazyWP]

I would say you guys are reading way more into it then what I saw. What I read, was that he has a horse that is good enough to drag a calf through the fire, and if you want him there he can do it. As to beating someones ash, I have been around employers that had to yell scream and belittle their wives and children in front of me, and that is how I took this guy who was ready to whip his ash in front of his wife and kids!!

I would be plumb proud to work around the guy that wrote the comment

 

[Jake]

I would say you guys are reading way more into it then what I saw. What I read, was that he has a horse that is good enough to drag a calf through the fire, and if you want him there he can do it. As to beating someones ash, I have been around employers that had to yell scream and belittle their wives and children in front of me, and that is how I took this guy who was ready to whip his ash in front of his wife and kids!!

I would be plumb proud to work around the guy that wrote the comment

Nothing wrong with his first statements, it's the last three paragraphs that make him out like an arrogant prick to me.

 

[flyingS]

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.

 

[Big Swede]

I went to help my neighbor brand his newly purchased pairs calves last week. Part of them came from WY and part from NE. Someone had attempted to band the bull calves at birth. There were probably 40 calves that some idiot missed one or both nuts. It kept 3 guys busy performing major surgery to get the nuts out of their bellies. What a mess.

 

[gcreekrch]

I went to help my neighbor brand his newly purchased pairs calves last week. Part of them came from WY and part from NE. Someone had attempted to band the bull calves at birth. There were probably 40 calves that some idiot missed one or both nuts. It kept 3 guys busy performing major surgery to get the nuts out of their bellies. What a mess.

It is interesting how many fail to count to two after the band is on. The hooks on the pliers can be used to pull the band off if one nut slips back and then can be replaced properly.

We get a few chryptos every year. These I don't bother to band and use a knife when we brand.

I've bought a lot of other people's mistakes over the years at greatly discounted prices. They've made us a lot of money when cleaned up.

 

[4Diamond]

I went to help my neighbor brand his newly purchased pairs calves last week. Part of them came from WY and part from NE. Someone had attempted to band the bull calves at birth. There were probably 40 calves that some idiot missed one or both nuts. It kept 3 guys busy performing major surgery to get the nuts out of their bellies. What a mess.

It is interesting how many fail to count to two after the band is on. The hooks on the pliers can be used to pull the band off if one nut slips back and then can be replaced properly.

We get a few chryptos every year. These I don't bother to band and use a knife when we brand.

I've bought a lot of other people's mistakes over the years at greatly discounted prices. They've made us a lot of money when cleaned up.

Oh man this gets discussed on other forums all the time. People claim they can count to two but with those baby calves it isn't always that easy. We generally wait til calves are roughly 300# and cut them. A lot of buyers will pay more for cut calves too.

 

[Silver]

We banded ours at birth this year. Not a fan of banding but I thought I would try to see how it worked. When our calves are born we move the pairs out about a half mile to the feeding grounds as soon as they will travel. Fresh cut steer calves sometimes don't move out so well so I thought maybe with the band they would be more likely to make the trip without laying down and feeling sorry for themselves for an extended period of time. It seemed to work, so I may continue to do it going forward. I just don't care for the look of a banded calf, so as a matter of personal preference I just may go back to knife cutting :???:

 

[gcreekrch]

I went to help my neighbor brand his newly purchased pairs calves last week. Part of them came from WY and part from NE. Someone had attempted to band the bull calves at birth. There were probably 40 calves that some idiot missed one or both nuts. It kept 3 guys busy performing major surgery to get the nuts out of their bellies. What a mess.

It is interesting how many fail to count to two after the band is on. The hooks on the pliers can be used to pull the band off if one nut slips back and then can be replaced properly.

We get a few chryptos every year. These I don't bother to band and use a knife when we brand.

I've bought a lot of other people's mistakes over the years at greatly discounted prices. They've made us a lot of money when cleaned up.

Oh man this gets discussed on other forums all the time. People claim they can count to two but with those baby calves it isn't always that easy. .

OK :roll:

 

[flyingS]

I cut quite a few 600 weight calves that had a nut left in them after being banded. It was a nightmare. It would have been easier to rope them and stretch them out but it was in Jan. and Feb. and I was the only one that roped, so I cut them standing in the chute with a leg tied back. That experience pretty well would ruin me on buying any banded calves.