Hot iron branding of livestock is the oldest form of permanent identification and has been used for a long time in the western United States as proof of ownership. Freeze branding is relatively ...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - One of the West's most enduring symbols is fading like a red-hot branding iron cools to ashen gray. With concerns over disease and global trade trumping tradition, regulators want ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Ranchers are being nudged further into the computer age by a former New Mexico state brands supervisor who has developed software that instantly matches hot-iron brands with cattle ...

The first hot-iron brands were developed in Mexico in the 1500s as a way to mark cattle ownership. The number of registered brands multiplied as the cattle population exploded across the Southwest.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Ranchers are being nudged further into the computer age by a former New Mexico state brands supervisor who has developed software that instantly matches hot-iron brands with cattle ...