Branding.....why?

As the owner of a branded exmoor, it sure isn't for identification. Another livery read it as 'P4' the other day. It's H7 54. Presumably for andalusians and the like it's just to identify that they have passed the grading and have been papered. A mark of quality, or stamp of approval, if you like!
 
Fransurrey said:
As the owner of a branded exmoor, it sure isn't for identification. Another livery read it as 'P4' the other day. It's H7 54. Presumably for andalusians and the like it's just to identify that they have passed the grading and have been papered. A mark of quality, or stamp of approval, if you like!
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Aha, so you have a Murrayton one? ;)
Lovely temperaments most of those :)
 
Its two fold I think. For wild herds on the moors, it is for ID. For other horses it would normally only be following grading etc to show that the horse had been accepted into the breeding section of the stud book following inspection (eg my Haffie has an edelweiss on her flank and GBH on her shoulder (very appropriate)!)
 
In the New Forest all ponies grazing on the Forest must be branded. Each Commoner has their own brand. This is so the Agisters (and anybody else) can easily identify the owners of a sick, lame or dead pony and ask them to deal with it. This doesn't mean that a branded pony grazing the Forest is a registered Forester - Commoners can turn out anything from Shetlands onwards and they're all branded. I know a lot of people are anti hot branding but it is so easy to identify a brand from a distance and you get to know the local ones. Imagine the problems in having to swipe a feral micro chipped pony :confused:
 
Since this will undoubtedly freefall into a cruelty debate regardless ;) I don't feel like I'm stirring too badly to ask - why not freeze marking then? I thought that would be easier to read from a distance (or is it not?). Ethics aside, is it just the traditional choice?
 
Floxie; I really don't think this will escalate into a cruelty debate. The thought hadn't actually entered my head. I am asking as the owner of a Belgian sporthorse who was branded 14 years prior to purchase!
 
Tradition has always been for hot branding. It's very quick, involves just one iron and it's easy to light a fire near the pound (the small corral ponies are rounded up into) to heat the irons. I'm not going to get involved in the ethics. All I can say is that I have never had problems either behavioural or to do with sore backs with hot branded ponies.
 
for the OP and specifically warmblood branding they normally get the brand of the breed society with a number under it as a foal. the numbers are attached to the society mark for the branding. the number under the brand is given from the registration number of the foal so it will be easily tracable if in the future someone wanted to trace the breeding of a branded horse where the papers (now a passport) is lost. for the breed society I deal with most there are 2 numbers under the brand so obviously the same numbers will be on more than one horse so they would go by the age then sex and colour/markings to work out which horse it is that you have bought
 
Branding in Spain is a breeder's mark; each stud has it's own registered brand (and some brand their bulls with the same mark).
 
Floxie said:
... - why not freeze marking then? I thought that would be easier to read from a distance (or is it not?). Ethics aside, is it just the traditional choice?
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Tradition. Freeze branding wasn't widely available when most (all?) of the brands (feral or breed) were set up. And things move slowly in the horsey (and admin-y) world(s).

There is a slight argument for the speed of hot-branding the ferals vs freezing but several of the older breed brands are likely to die out with the German ban on hot branding (think this is happening?) - they'll be using micro chips as no requirement for visual identification.

In the US mustangs are now freeze branded so there is change for some ferals too.
 
Tickles said:
Tradition. Freeze branding wasn't widely available when most (all?) of the brands (feral or breed) were set up. And things move slowly in the horsey (and admin-y) world(s).

There is a slight argument for the speed of hot-branding the ferals vs freezing but several of the older breed brands are likely to die out with the German ban on hot branding (think this is happening?) - they'll be using micro chips as no requirement for visual identification.

In the US mustangs are now freeze branded so there is change for some ferals too.
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No ban at the moment in Germany and foals are still being branded. it is a lot faster than freezebranding and foals I have seen branded react a lot less to that than they do to the microchip plus freezebranding takes longer with individual irons for each letter or number and the iron needs to be on a lot longer than a hot brand.
 
crabbymare said:
No ban at the moment in Germany and foals are still being branded. it is a lot faster than freezebranding and foals I have seen branded react a lot less to that than they do to the microchip plus freezebranding takes longer with individual irons for each letter or number and the iron needs to be on a lot longer than a hot brand.
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And freeze branding also causes discomfort.
 
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