Branding is the way that the Agriculture Department keeps track of the ownership of animals like horses and cattle. Pigs have notches made in their ears to define ownership. The brand and its location is all recorded with the state agriculture department and has to be documented when a sale is made or when an animal is taken out of state. Most cattle are hot branded but horses are freeze branded. It is a lot less painful and less disfiguring than hot branding or ear notching. Wild horses that are put up for adoption are branded with a series of letters and numbers along their neck under their mane. The code tells when and where they were captured and from what herd they came. Oregon has a couple of herds, most notable the Kiger herd in the Steen's Mountains of South East Oregon. My niece, Tiffany and her husband Jay adopted a Kiger mustang mare when they lived near Bend.
Since the vet was at the ranch doing dental work on some horses we decided to have her give a tranquilizer to the three one year old horses and brand them today. The tranquilizer kept them from moving and would make for a neat good looking brand mark.
We shaved off their winter hair where we would make the brand.
A brass branding iron is submerged in liquid nitrogen for 15 minutes after being soaked in alcohol for 10 minutes to sterilize it. Then with two of us holding the head and shoulders of the foal against the wall the branding iron is applied for 45 seconds. Only one foal tried to move a little after 20 seconds. It really isn't painful just uncomfortable and hard to keep the foal still for the full time unless tranquilized. When a foal moves too much the brand ends up being partial or looks like a double print. These should look really good.
Here is what it looks like after. This is basically a freeze burn and will scab over in a few days. When the scab drops off the the hair of the brand will grow in white.
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