Animal Brands Can't Do It All; Ear Tags Proposed to Trace Disease
It's no secret the hot-iron brand is an iconic symbol of West Texas living.
For more than 100 years, ranchers have found that for livestock identification, branding can't be replaced or improved upon. Without hesitation, ranchers say they intend to use their brand forever, but when it comes to animal disease traceability, the brand isn't sufficient.
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has sought to develop a program that, in the event of a disease outbreak, would allow regulators to pinpoint animals' location within 48 hours.
In early August, the USDA issued a proposed rule to establish general regulations for improving traceability of U.S. livestock moving across state lines.
"We will continue to use brands as an official form in Texas. That will be supplemented or augmented with an ear tag," said Eldon White, Texas Southwest Cattle Raisers' executive vice president.
The proposed rule would require all breeding-aged animals, those at least 18 months old, to have an official tag if they're moving out of state, White said.
In addition, all dairy cattle, rodeo cattle and show cattle, regardless of age, will be required to wear a tag if traveling across state lines.
The USDA will provide tags to states that in turn will give them to producers, he said. Tags will be uniform in appearance and bear a unique number that will be recorded by a veterinarian.
Cattle are already routinely inspected for health as they cross state lines, White said.
The proposed rule is not directly implemented to ensure food safety, White said, because precautions are already in place that don't allow tainted meat to enter into supply.
"More importantly, it's designed to trace back to the source of that animal, so if it's a contagious disease, and they've had some pen mates, it can be taken care of before it's widespread," he said. "Primarily it's designed to take care of the health of the herd rather than the food supply."
Regardless, ranchers seem to be unanimous in their opinion that their hot-iron brand will always be best for identification of livestock on their own ranches. Brands have been recorded in Taylor County since 1878.
Decades-old drawings of ear markings and brands are noted in giant books stored at the Taylor County Courthouse, evidence of Taylor County's longtime ranching history.
"These are some of the first records ever kept in the county," said Melanie Ray, chief deputy at the courthouse. "They were kept then for the same reason they're kept now. You record a brand to know it's yours."
Every county in Texas requires residents to register their brands and marks every 10 years. Taylor County residents have a six-month period, which ends Feb. 29, to register their brands.
According to Ray, some of the brands being registered in this six-month period can be found in some of the earliest record books for the county, proof that a brand is a long-standing mark of local tradition.
"A lot of these brands are still in existence today, passed down from generation to generation," she said. "Even if you're not running stock anymore, it's often a family brand, a mark of your family."
Billy Green doesn't anticipate every getting rid of the brand his granddad adopted more than 100 years ago for W.H. Green ranch in Albany.
"Well, I imagine as long as there are individuals with neighbors, probably so," he said of finding a use for the hot-iron brand. "It's the only sure way I know of to identify they're yours."
Between Corpus Christi and Brownsville sits a more-than 800,000-acre ranch that possibly carries one of the most iconic brands in history.
The Running W brand is emblazoned on just about everything on the King Ranch property.
"It means so much to our ranch that it's actually copyrighted," said Dave Delaney, ranch vice president. "It's a brand in the truest sense of the word. It's inherent to our very well being."
The Running W appears not just on the cattle, he said, but on the trucks that drive through the ranch, barns and buildings. It's stamped on every piece or correspondence that leaves the ranch office.
Delaney doesn't disagree with the traceability framework the USDA wants to implement but, like most ranchers, he also doesn't foresee ever ceasing to use the traditional hot-iron brand.
"It's been in use since 1860," he said. "It's basically the symbol of all that we are."
