Branding serves as protection for livestock

There are three things we ranchers seem to deal with on a regular basis: Government, Mother Nature and cattle thieves. We can’t always control how the government regulates our industry, and we can’t ever control the hand that Mother Nature deals us. But we can work to protect ourselves against cattle thieves by branding our livestock. Branding is a tradition in Texas. Since before the 1800s, Texas ranchers have used brands to identify their livestock and help prevent cattle theft — a phenomenon that still happens pretty frequently in Texas today. In fact, in 2010, the number of cattle reported missing or stolen to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association was approximately 7,700, an increase of 220 percent from 2007. In 1877, the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) was created with the objective of preventing cattle theft. While TSCRA has evolved and expanded over the past century, preventing and solving agricultural crimes, especially cattle theft, remains the foundation of the association. Ask any of the 30 special rangers employed by TSCRA and they’ll tell you the best way to prevent cattle theft is to brand, and in the instance that branded cattle are stolen, they are much more likely to be recovered than unbranded cattle. Last year, TSCRA special rangers recovered or accounted for more than $3.6 million worth of stolen property, much of which were stolen cattle...more