Freeze Branding

[Hanta Yo]

It was a gorgeous day to freeze brand!! I apologize for all the pictures as I know how long it takes to download pics with dial up. We get ours at 26.6, pretty slow. This is how we did it:



Put your brass irons in a cooler, place dry ice and 99% alcohol to cover your irons. The liquid will look like syrup.

Use large animal clippers to get hair clipped off.

Then use small animal clippers, using surgical blades to get to the skin.

Scrub clipped area well with 99% alcohol, then squirt alcohol from top to bottom to clean off hair, dirt, etc.

Place your brass irons on cleaned area, sw does two, son does 1. We go 1 + minutes on blacks (depends on how much they wiggle), 1 min 10 sec on red and grays, 1 min 10 sec on bulls. We use a stopwatch, when all three irons are on, we start the time, when they start wiggling, we stop the time. When they quit wiggling, we start the time again. To be repeated until they quit wiggling altogether because it's numb.

See the vapors coming off the branding irons?

This is what it looks like right after you take the irons off.

Pretty little heifer, isn't she??

Corky taking a rest after a hard day of work.

Any questions?? :wink:

 

[Denny]

So are these bred heifers born in 04 ? being your numbers start with 4's

 

[Hanta Yo]

These are fall born in 04, (since we are fall calvers) we will start with MGA on Monday, will be done AI with them before Thanksgiving, will start AI cows just after Thanksgiving. I know it's hard for spring calvers to think opposite. We wouldn't dream of running pregnant heifers through freeze branding!

 

[Hanta Yo]

OH, BTW,

We've been so blessed with the moisture we've gotten in the past 2 weeks... It's actually greening up, the grass is growing...just perfect to flush our heifers/cows to get them to cycle and cycling they are...

 

[katrina]

I've always wondered how freeze branding was done.. Thank You....
We just shoulder brand ours with a hot iron....

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Hanta somebody Goofed they put 439 on 418. :wink:

 

[Hanta Yo]

heheheheh, two different heifers. 8)

 

[Hanta Yo]

I've always wondered how freeze branding was done.. Thank You....
We just shoulder brand ours with a hot iron....

You're welcome Today we hot branded our calves out of the 2 and 3 year olds...may post some pics if any turned out good enough. I sure do feel my age today

 

[Hanta Yo]

posted with no pics...dumb

 

[Hanta Yo]

Here ya go, NR, posted this last October. Be glad to make a road trip and help ya out :wink: I'll have MCG take pics of the ones in the pics I took, see how they really turned out :wink:

 

[Hanta Yo]

Here's 414

439, didn't turn out as well as 428 (the one who calved today) but not bad

Here's 418, I think we only saw her head on

Here are some red ones, they come out, not as good as blacks

A gray one, they don't come out as well as reds, even if the numbers are white, still hard to see on grays

 

[Northern Rancher]

They look good-I haven't done it here for a few years because dry ice is bit of a pain to get ahold of-and liquiid nitrogen is $4/litre but I might start again.

 

[PureCountry]

Your grass sure looks brown. Little dry there?

 

[Hanta Yo]

Yup, tinder dry. No rain so to speak for months. It's pretty much brown like this all over the place around here. Sure wish it would rain...

 

[Sandy]

We freeze brand all our replacement heifers. One thing I was told not to do was use clippers with surgical blades cause you don't want to get right down to the skin. We use liquid nitrogen and leave the irons on for 30 seconds. I think the nitrogen is much colder. It usually works out to about 1 litre per animal so it's not that costly. We've had great results but your brands look very good too.

 

[cowsense]

Hanta; Thanks for the refresher course; you'll have to make a rest stop here on your way north to NR's! You may be terrible dry but it looks like you were able to grow some grass.........hopefully it turns cooler and damp and reduces the fire danger!

 

[Hanta Yo]

I'm bringing this back to the top, for educational purposes.

Here you go, Boundary Ranch. Hope this helps!

BTW, Welcome Aboard!!!

 

[sic 'em reds]

Do you think it would be okay to freeze brand them the day I started my synch program this March? Shouldn't really effect anything would it?

 

[Shortgrass]

Can you do that with steel irons?

 

[Boundary Ranch]

Thanks to the people who responded, I should of been more clear, I use liquid nitrogen. but thanks anyway. Sandy you said you use LN and 30 seconds for what age of animal and what time of year and also how hard do you press and do you roll your iron. also is your iron a brass iron from L and H. I have used various times, and i get with exact same times some burned and some really good. I have herd cattle are easier to do than horses but we have done our horses for at least ten years and they turn out all perfect.