Does branding hurt cows?
I have branded cattle and you better believe that hot branding does hurt. There are more humane alternatives to hot branding: freeze branding, which is used on some breeds of horses; eartagging, and microchipping. The main purpose of branding is to allow people who are working cattle that are roaming over large areas of land to easily be identified with regard to ownership, and also to make it harder for thieves to get away with stealing them. When cattle that have a brand are sold through a public sales yard, or are sent to a feedlot or slaughterhouse, there is supposed to be a review of the branded cattle for ownership issues. Microchipping is more precise in terms of defining ownership, because the microchip, when scanned, can give lots of data that requires no interpretation. A brand, on the other hand, may for various reasons be difficult to read or be ambiguous in interpretation. I believe that eventually hot-branding cattle will be a thing of the past. For now, freeze-branding,
