Cherry County, Nebraska, enjoys the distinguished title of being the largest beef cattle-producing county in the nation. In ...

Late spring and early summer is branding time in the High Plains region, and even if some cow-calf producers don’t brand calves any more, many still work them at this time to set them up for ...

In the spring of each year, ranchers gather and brand their herds’ new recruits, continuing a tradition as old as the open ...

Haying has been in full swing, and we have been able to knock out quite a few fields. The first cutting is almost wrapped up ...

WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Every year at the beginning of June, a group of our friends from Bismarck and Dickinson load up and come to the ranch to help us brand our calves. It’s become a tradition ...

On the Burdick Ranch, nestled in Nebraska’s Sandhills, spring cattle branding is an annual act of community. The sheer scale of gathering, roping, vaccinating, and marking 900 calves with the ...

Branding is voluntary. Some cattle outside the designated brand area – roughly the western two-thirds of Nebraska – are branded and some within the area aren’t.

Two days before one of the biggest days of his life, Colston Loveland went out to participate in a ritual he’d done for most of his life. He branded some calves. Loveland met up with some family ...

KEARNEY — The main reason to brand cattle is the same today as during the wide-open range era of the mid- to late 19th century. It’s a permanent mark of ...

The calf needs to be branded, vaccinated and then have its ear lipped to mark that all the necessary work has been done. Time to move on to the next calf. When the branding was done, the day was ...