The Deep Meaning to Branding and Community
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
This week, I learned about the importance of community in ranching. A good community plays a key role in running a ranch. Although sometimes it may not be as obvious as other times, having that support system is vital. I’ve been to three brandings this summer, and throughout them all, there is a common theme and importance of community. When you grow up ranching, branding is just one of the things that you do. I feel like the community aspect and togetherness often get overlooked. As an outsider looking in, seeing friends, family, neighbors, and others get together to help one another is amazing. I learned that what’s said in the pen stays in the pen, and if someone takes a tone while talking to you, it’s because it’s out of love and concern for your safety and not ill-intended. After yelling at people (or getting yelled at), everyone gets together and shares a meal, reveling over the events of the day and stories from the past.
Branding is important and holds a much deeper value than what you see on the surface. An outsider may just see a hot iron melting away hair follicles and leaving a mark on a calf, but it represents so much more. An image and livelihood are upheld by the brand left on the calf. Your brand is your reputation, and ties into the community aspect as well. If you have a poor reputation, your brand will have a negative connotation associated with it. With a poor brand and reputation, you lose the important community aspect that is so necessary to successfully run a ranch. I learned the importance of a brand, specifically in the state of Wyoming, as cattle are required to have brand registration and proof of ownership when being transported. The Wyoming Livestock Board has brand inspectors who regulate and uphold these laws. This begged the question for me: How common is theft of cattle? If there are laws and regulations in place, how often do they get broken to necessitate these laws?
Reflecting upon the importance of branding, I realized it can be related to our own lives. While we may not use a hot iron to leave a mark on our skin, we still carry our own brands with us every day. In a way, we are branded by society with labels, expectations, and stereotypes that shape the way we are treated and the way we tend to treat others. Branding reduces livestock to the mark they carry, similar to the way that we, as people, can be reduced to a single trait that can overshadow the complex reality of a person. Brands are also permanent, and they don’t go away. Thinking about how this relates to our own lives, we can have emotional “brands” that permanently alter the way we do things and live our lives. Relating branding to my own life is one of the ways I can reflect upon and understand the importance and significance of a brand.
I learned a lot of new information about branding culture in Wyoming, and the concept that stuck out to me the most was brand inspection. I have never heard of that before, so learning about how that works really helped clear up questions I had previously regarding the significance of branding. One question I had after learning about branding regulations in Wyoming was: How do other states and countries regulate branding? Is branding mandatory in some places? Do some areas not allow branding? I also noticed some of the cows that were purchased at the sale barn had other brands on them. A few cows had over three brands from moving between owners. This made me question how you can identify who the cow belongs to when it has multiple brands. Is there a way to cover other brands?
To summarize, I learned about the purpose and process of branding cattle and reflected upon the importance of a good community in ranching. One concept that I would challenge from this week is whether or not branding is the most effective way to identify cattle. I understand the traditions and historical significance of branding, but with newer technology, would it be more effective and less stressful for the calves to use ear tags or RFID chips? Are there better alternatives to branding that can offer the same level of security while reducing stress? How often does branding lead to further complications like infections? With the knowledge that I’ve gained from this past week, I plan on applying it to how I handle cattle. Knowing the best ways to handle them is important, especially when working with them as a large animal veterinarian in the future. I also plan on looking into the benefits of handling cattle in a low-stress environment and what effect that has on their health.
Submitted by: Sydney Farley
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
