Brands on Livestock 41 



it will lengthen, so that one letter may become distorted at a 

 faster rate than another of the same brand. This fact may 

 often make the deciphering of a brand impossible. When the hot 

 iron is applied to a calf in the branding process, it kills the hide 

 directly beneath and a little to the side of the metal. If the 

 letters are close enough together and the brand is complex 

 enough, these burned places may gradually extend as growth 

 takes place and the resulting mark will be a big burned blot«h. 

 A sample of this was with the "box-J" brand (a square with 

 a J inside) which looked very neat when the calf was first brand- 

 ed, but within a few months the brand often had turned to a 

 blotch. 



To determine old brands, with living animals, about the only 

 accurate method is to shear the hair away from the branded 

 part, and then the brand may be closely enough traced for 

 ordinary purposes. A new brand will peel, that is, the hide will 

 usually "scab-up" to quite an extent, although an old brand may 

 be chafed by the animal and become sore, so that a scab brand is 

 not always a sure sign that it is new. The only sure way that I 

 know to detect an old brand which has been altered or which is 

 in dispute is to kill the animal and skin it. The old brand will 

 be plainly visible on the inside of the hide, though it may be 

 invisible from the outside. The inside of the hide will show 

 a welt that will give the outline of the brand, and this will hold 

 true even though the hide has been tanned. With disputes be- 

 tween owners this method is, of course, not referred to very 

 often, but if one has an idea that beef comes from a "rustler," 

 it is well to try to get the hide before it is buried or burned, since 

 the brand on the inside of the hide is good court evidence. 



"Venting" a brand is the use of some known and accepted, 

 and usually recorded method of cancelling a brand. The vent 

 is, as a rule, recorded just as carefully as the brand. The two 

 most common methods of venting brands are to place the same 

 brand above, below, or to one side of the old brand; or to add 

 som e new mark. Examples of official venting are: PV becomes 

 PV when vented, K becomes K when vented, and CC becomes CC 

 when vented. K CC 



As the brand is the only definite means a man has of telling 

 whether an animal belongs to him, it is usually taken for granted 

 by the owner that the best course is to record the brand in some 



