Springtime is branding time in Montana
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It’s the quintessential western scene — cowboys on horseback roping and dragging calves to the branding fire. Calves are held down or “wrestled,” branded, ear marked, castrated if they are bull calves and inoculated, all in one seamless western ballet. Smoke from the scorched hide and hair rises, calves bawl and anxious mother-cows answer. The calf rises and scampers back into the herd, probably wondering what happened.
Some believe branding is barbaric. It’s necessary to prove ownership, especially when shipping cattle to another state.
Cattle came to Montana about 1850, “before the wire,” as Canadian singer/poet Ian Tyson sings. Captain Richard Grant and his family were some of the first ranchers in Montana. They lived at the junction of the Stinkingwater (now called the Ruby River) and the Beaverhead River. Grant and his family traded skins, furs and moccasins for footsore and worn-out oxen to people on the Oregon Trail. They trailed the weary oxen back to the Beaverhead Valley and turned them out to rest and fatten on the native grass. In the spring they’d take the rejuvenated animals back and trade them again, at a rate of one fat and ready-to-go ox for two thin, trail-weary ones.
Nelson Storey, of Bozeman, started driving the first trail herd of Texas cattle to Montana in the spring of 1866 and arrived on Dec. 6.
At that time brands were necessary because cattle ranged all over the countryside. During roundup or before a trail drive to market, representatives from different ranches sorted out the cattle, based on brands.
The practice of branding is now under the scrutiny of the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA wants a program that allows regulators to find out where an animal comes from in less than 48 hours, mostly in case of a disease outbreak, such as the cow with Mad Cow Disease discovered in rural Washington in 2003.
Other beef-producing countries, such as Canada and Australia, have such a system, and they use it to their marketing advantage when shipping beef to countries that want to know where the roasts and steaks come from.
Branding for livestock identification is used in 14 states, but according to the USDA many other states are ill equipped to use and record brands, according to the USDA.
The USDA has not had much success with its voluntary tracking program, and now they are promoting ear-tags for cattle, preferably one with a numerical ID electronically imbedded in it, to make tracking animals from ranch to feedlot to slaughterhouse.
“We’ve used them (on our ranch) for the past few years,” said Ken McAlpin, president of the Western Montana Stockmen’s Association. “Pacific rim countries want guarantees of where cattle come from and their age.”
This year the feedlot where the McAlpins send their cattle didn’t require the ear tags, and he’s glad. To insert the ear tag, each calf had to be caught in a head-catch ad that took some extra work.
But ear tags, as most ranchers know, can break, get caught on a branch or brush and get torn off the animal’s ear or cut off by a rustler.
“I don’t think anything will touch hot iron branding,” McAlpin added. “A brand is a brand; it reads the same on the inside as on the outside ... it’s tradition and absolute proof.”
McAlpin said, “In Montana, we have some pretty serious brand law, and it’s got some teeth. You don’t move cattle without a brand inspection, and you don’t mess around with brands.”
