Terry - Talk to me about freeze branding

[Beth Worden]

I want to freeze brand my stock and I want to register my brand - however I have no idea how to do this. I am going to surf the net for NYS information on branding. I have attempted to get info before and somehow got sidetracked. This time I am going to go forward. Any help you can provide is appreciated.

[Terry Wallace]

Beth...go to www.lhbrandingirons.com that is who I used to have my freeze brand made. Check the laws in your state...in Colorado, it is $200 to register a brand, and the brand itself must be 3 characters, that do not "adjoin"... mine is 2-W. Every four years (I think its 4) you have to keep it active for $125.00 to keep it on record with the states out here, Colorado, New Mexico, etc.

You can use ice & alcohol... or you can get liquid nitrogen at most any welding supply. I use a medium sized igloo water cooler (like contractors have on the backs of trucks) to transport the Liquid Nitrogen. It cannot be tightly capped for transport..it must be able to breath & bleed off. if you were to cap it...it WILL blow up...it would blow the top off the cooler...so you cannot cap it tightly.

Ice & alcohol is too inconsistent for me... I use the nitrogen... it will "get rid of itself' by bleeding off in about 4 hours...depends on how much you get...

I have a video on how to freeze brand..it has the freeze branding of horses on it...would you like a copy? Or..you can order one at the above website.

Freeze branding is easy, permanent, and not very painful for a horse...not like a hot brand at all... I think of it this way... Five minutes of low-grade pain, for a lifetime of permanent ID...far better than a lip tatoo...which actually will shed off the skin cells in time, and better than a microchip, which can get unreadable in the neck...and is HIGHLY noticeable.

Here, we are issued a brand ID card, and NO horse can go through a sale or auction without written consent from the brand holder... and the livestock inspector can look up the brand and contact you if there is any question on who owns the horse.

[Beth Worden]

Terry - many, many thanks. I have an email into NYS Ag and Markets and will find out about the registration, fees, etc. And...for all the reasons you mentioned, I am going with the freeze branding rather than the alternatives. Just seems the most permanent, logical.

I am checking out the site and will let you know if I will need the tape.

THANKS!

[Beth Worden]

Terry - many, many thanks. I have an email into NYS Ag and Markets and will find out about the registration, fees, etc. And...for all the reasons you mentioned, I am going with the freeze branding rather than the alternatives. Just seems the most permanent, logical.

I am checking out the site and will let you know if I will need the tape.

THANKS!

[Mellifluous]

Another option is to use the company that has a system of symbols that will ID your horse by breed, reg # and year of birth (I believe). I can't remember the name of the company that does it. The brand looks a lot like what the mustangs get.

[Beth Worden]

WOW - Can you believe that the NYS Ag& Markets has responed already. I have copied and pasted the info below with address and instructions for any of you New Yorkers interested:

Hi Beth,

Yes, we have a brand registration system. Please send your written request filled out to the State Veterinarian, Dr. John Huntley, to our
address:

NYS Department of Agriculture & Markets
10B Airline Drive
Albany, NY 12235

Include a sketch of the brand you want, and we will assign a number to it and send you back the information for the brand.
Thank you,
Daysha Bierganns

[Heidi]

Another option is to use the company that has a system of symbols that will ID your horse by breed, reg # and year of birth (I believe). I can't remember the name of the company that does it. The brand looks a lot like what the mustangs get.
I am pulling my hair out here! I saved this particular information somewhere...but I'll be DARNED if I can find it now! I want to have Q branded in this manner. Under her mane and I'll place a sign on our property gate, horses branded for identification.

[TrueStepPaso]

For years I've wanted to freeze brand.....especially since my Morgan is one solid color...has NO distinguishing marks, scars, ect....and she is left unsupervised (at night) on 10 acres. They guy who owns the property is like 80 yrs old, and wouldn't hear a dump truck on fire going through his HOUSE....never mind the farm down his driveway. :shock:

Its just a smart thing to do....ya just never know what idiots are gonna do.

Someday, I WILL do it. Just can't come up with a design I really like....

[Beth Worden]

I have a couple artist friends that have made suggestions, but I want to keep it very simple, easy to read and easy to recognize.

Terry - did you put your horses in stocks, did you tranq, twitch?

[Terry Wallace]

The symbol brands the BLM uses are over 12 inches long! The freeze brand I have is exactly 5" X 2".

Yes, Beth, I put them in a stock to do it... but I used to just squeeze them between a gate & pipe rail fence (with a pole behind them to keep them still).... before we had access to stocks...and that was with a hot brand.... No, you do not need tranq or sedation... you MUST shave the area bald though..or darn close to bald...

Some horses don't even realize they are getting one, until four seconds are close to being over...

With the hot brands..they of course smell burning skin & hair...as well as feeling it...which puts them on edge...

The BLM brands...the symbol brands they use...are terribly hard to read even when you shave them down...and they are very, very l-o-n-g.
I once though I saw a freeze brand on the back of Ghandi de la Vitrina...but was later told he had a "back operation"....

They used to hot brand the side of the JAW on bucking horses... I had a mare I bought off a bucking string when I was a young kid...she had a "68" on her jaw...as she was born in 1968.... that was how they kept track of them.... talk about an UGLY brand...whew!! That HAD to hurt!

[Beth Worden]

Terry - Again thanks for the info. Being in medical research the liquid nitrogen is a no brainer. And yes...I have seen many, many BLM brands and they all just looked like a 12" comb with teeth missing here and there. But the gals at the holding station said if you knew how to read them they gave a wealth of info on the horse - BUT, nobody at the sub-station (in Lweisbury, PA) knew how to read them! LOL

Your branded bucking horse made me remember a little cow horse my papa bought out of the auction. She had a brand on each hip, one on each shoulder and one on each jaw!!! And they were all different. She was a bay and had white marks on her sides that looked like cat claw marks. Papa bought her right off the truck before she hit the sale ring. He knew the "claw marks" meant she had been raked with spurs and that she was most likely a cutting horse and that she was! Whew, she could snap you head near off when she got down on a cow.

[Abejita]

We always freeze branded the STBs as foals..our own system(same number as the mares farm ID number) until the USTA instituted freeze branding instead of a lip tatoo..It was easy..and if I ever decide to mark my horses thats what I will be doing.

We always wiped down the brand with glycerin as soon as it was done and a day or two after..I dont know if this was pi**ing in the wind or not but the farm owner felt it helped to expedite the skin peeling off the brands..

[Heidi]

http://haywireoutfit.com/Horse.html

Finally! I just KNEW I had saved it somehere...I just hadn't saved it on the computer...I printed it out and put it in one of Q's folders of vet info.
Heidi

[PasoPerson]

Terry - Isn't the company with the hyroglyphics called Kryo-Kenetics or something like that? I know the reason they are so long is that the first symbol is the breed of horse, and the rest is their breed association registration number. Or in the case of the mustangs, their BLM number.

Here is Florida it's a whopping $10 to register your brand, if available. And $5 every 5 years to renew that registration. It's actually against the law here to brand before you've received approval for your brand. But it's been my experience that, other than cattle farmers, hardly anyone knows that.

[Heidi]

Isn't the company with the hyroglyphics called Kryo-Kenetics...?
Yes, that is the link (haywire) I provided in my above post. They call it an Alpha Angle system, I think.

[Terry Wallace]

Yes Carolyn..I'm aware of why the brands are long....I have had BLM mustangs. It is each horse's individual "key" code..it starts with "US" for united states..then the year of birth, then the key code number...
I have seen few that were actually readable on the BLM horses. I usually shave them down and take a photo, and even then...it depends on how much the horse moved its neck while the foot long brand was applied...

Of course these mustangs don't just "stand still" for branding...they are run into a chute, and tied, and held and branded...so I do think this is why they are so very hard to read.... When you get symbols that are not readable, you can sure miss-ID a horse....

I would go with what my state inspectors use...here, they use a three character brand.... very effective, and very simple I think ;-)

Years ago..Arabs used neck brands of the "angle" symbols.....do they still?

[Jane Hurl]

Just for information:

A couple of years ago, Rose and I went to a seminar on animal identification. One of the brand inspectors for the province was speaking there. (Alberta has a whole whopping TWO brand inspectors -- but that's a different thread altogether!)

Anyway, this fellow said that, though freeze branding is less painful and less unsightly, it is also less reliable. When pressed as to why that would be, he indicated that the way a freeze brand works is to cause the hair to come back in white, which is noticeable against most colours of horse hair. (Aside: so you can't freeze brand a grey horse). But the down side of the freeze brand -- and where the hot brand is superior -- is that a freeze brand can be easily disguised by the application of a little shoe polish or hair dye. Obviously, that's not so with the hot brand.

Just FYI and something to think about.