![]() Monroe Magnuson, a Utah rancher, remembers gathering and collecting metal ear tags as a child at the range association sorting pens where the cattle came off Forest Service allotments in the fall. Some of our brands here are very old, from when the Spanish brought cattle to Florida,” says Mann.īefore the advent of plastic or nylon ear tags, some ranchers used metal tags. “Earmarks and brands go together when we register a brand, even though the brand itself is the only legal mark. ![]() Some people use a crop and two splits,” he says. They may have a left ear with a crop and a split, and the right ear has a crop and an underbit or underslope.” “Most cattlemen use a combination of marks. “One of the larger ranches here in the early 1900s had a sharp, sharp, one on each ear,” says Mann. “A ‘sharp’ comes clear to the end, making the end of the ear look like a point. A fishhook underbit is more sloping and doesn’t go clear to the end of the ear, so it looks like a fishhook.Īn underslope starts at the back of the ear and comes out toward the end of the ear. At the top of the ear, it’s called an upperbit or an overbit. If the end of the ear is cut off, it’s called a crop.Ī little notch in the bottom of the ear is an underbit. At one place, they have about 40 different cattle owners, and on the other reservation they have about 30 – so there are about 70 different earmarks and brands,” says Mann.Ī triangular notch out of the end of the ear is called a swallowfork. “The Seminole families have their own herds, but their replacement heifers all run together until they are two years old. If they sell the calf, they don’t brand it,” he says. Ranchers often earmark calves when they are small and may not brand them unless they decide to keep them in their herd. “The brand is the legal ID, but earmarks are often a lot easier to see. Tommy Mann, who managed the Seminole cattle from 1972-90, says the tribe uses a combination of brands and earmarks to show ownership. The Seminole Tribe uses earmarks for owner identification since different families run cattle together, sell them in truckload lots and check earmarks for ownership when they weigh the cattle. Some earmarks in Florida date back to the Spaniards. “Then, if he loses his ear tag, he still has the ear notch,” Clymer says.Įar notching is still used in east Texas and the Southeast. A person can always tell who the calf belongs to, even if it might be awhile before the calf gets branded. Traditional methods for ownership included earmarks and skin wattles.Īn earmark – be that a split ear, undercut ear, ear notch or tip cut off – or a dangling piece of skin on the underside of the neck could be seen from a distance, even if ranchers were not close enough to see the brand on the animal.īill Clymer, a Texas rancher, uses a small notch at the tip of the left ear when a calf is born. Hot iron brands have been the standard and legal way to identify ownership of cattle, but many other identification systems are often used for individual identification and herd records – such as freeze branding, ear tags, brisket tags, neck chains with numbers, lip and ear tattoos, horn brands, etc.īefore the advent of ear tags and brisket tags, ranchers came up with ways to differentiate their cattle from their neighbor’s animals. Cattle ID Methods, From Branding to Tagging.
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