Branding Day

This past Friday was branding day. We are wanting to get more and more into the cow/calf thing, so we added 23 cows last week (we already had 20, so we're up to 43 now!) After the kids got out of school on Friday (they get out early every Friday) we headed to the ranch to get the branding done.

 Wes and Marshall did all of the actual branding, tagging, immunization, and pouring. My job was to hold Morgan (until I ran her up to the house to nap), take pictures and video, and keep the kids paying attention so things would run smoothly.

 (my handsome little cowboy)

 

(Wes had to pin the small calves down to get the branding done-they don't stand tall enough in the chute)

Everyone had their jobs, and even though the kids are too small to do the actual branding/tagging/immunizing, there is a lot that they can do. Hallie got all of the immunizations ready to go and then would hand the needle off to either Wes or my father-in-law. She also worked the gates and helped get the cows to come down the chute.

Kamryn got the pour-on ready for each one (it helps keep the bugs off of them).

 

Jaxson worked the gates with Hallie, closed the gate to the chute after each cow got in, and got the ear tags ready.

 

Kimber and Addi stayed on the Ranger to stay out of the way.

After the first two cows were done the branding iron was having problems and wouldn't get hot anymore. After troubleshooting and finding the problem the guys were able to fix it and we got back to work. The first two took about an hour and a half, and the other 21 took about that long as well. We got into a groove after awhile.

(how cute is she?)

 

(Kimber was really afraid of that big bull!)