You can add me to the knife at branding list. 

   A question; who prefers between the nuts to slit the bag, or do some cut "across the grain"?

   I agree with Denny's point about stretching the cords 'til they break, in my experience they don't bleed.

   I personally have had trouble with only one calf bleeding and he had the end of the bag cut off, and the cords cut.  Also the moon must have been wrong because almost every other new steer swelled and limped for a week that year.

   I'll bet almost everybody here knows that guy who brings 10 or 12 oysters to the can at a time, and spends 15 seconds per steer.  Those calves seem to never have problems.