I can smell spring coming. No-it’s not the fresh spring breeze that laundry detergent manufacturers like to try to imitate.

Saturday we freeze branded the heifer calves. These heifers are coming up on their first birthday, and have "made the team". They will be bred this summer to calve next spring as two-year-olds. We sold the bottom end (B and C squad, if you will) at the auction barn, some in February and some in early March.

So back to freeze branding. It is different than the traditional hot-iron branding. Rather than using a hot iron to create permanent identification, freeze branding uses extreme cold to alter the pigment of the hair. The process is more labor intensive than hot branding. Here's how it goes.

For us, it's not just a figure of speech.