NW Home of Freeze Branding

NW Home of Freeze Branding

Susan Allen
Susan Allen

 

The Northwest is known for a host of great things…..We’re the home of Nike, Nordstrom’s fine wine, fabulous coffee  and... Freeze branding. I’m Susan Allen and I’ll be back on today’s Open Range to fill you in on  a method that revolutionized the way we identify livestock developed  right here at one of our  Northwest land grant universities. Since the middle ages folks have been branding cattle with a hot iron to determine ownership and while that method is still popular on many ranches in the wrongs hands it can be damaging to horses that have thinner skin.  Thanks to a veterinarian at WashingtonStateUniversity, most horses are now humanely freeze branded. It began  in 1960 when Dr. Keith Farrell a vet at WSU and his wife Pat came up with a new way to brand livestock. They dubbed it the Alpha Angle System of Identification known today as the  “freeze brand”, a method of using intense cold to  damage the color  pigment in hair cells leaving horses with either a white or bare brand  with out harming skin or  muscles. Freeze branding uses either nitrogen or alcohol at a temperature of about  minus 320 degrees F and should be applied by a veterinarian  or a  someone with experience in freeze branding.  It is interesting that  freeze branding was first  adopted by the Arabian Horse Registry and then  other breeds jumped on the band wagon, today even our wild BLM mustangs get a freeze brand on their neck. I’m Susan Allen
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