Monday, June 9, 2008

Brand Conscience

We visited a friend's week old colt recently. My daughter had spilled a little apple juice on her dress right before we got to the ranch. The horse found it right away. Fast friends those two.

"Skid Boots" is the little guy's working title. His coat is unbelievably supple and his mane so fuzzy it will make an animal lover out of the most jaded...(me.) I oohed and awed.

Minor educational note- apparently there is a "new" kind of branding technique. Freeze branding is a technique in which a super cold branding iron, properly applied to the animals hide, kills the color pigment producing cells. The result is that white or colorless hair instead of colored hair, grow at the brand site. Freeze branding is effective on both cattle and horses along with dogs. One advantage of freeze branding is that it produces a readable brand at any time of the year. Another distinct advantage freeze branding has the distinct advantage of being painless or nearly painless to the animal during the branding process.


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This made my day! FINALLY a humane way to brand. Thanks for the info!