This Blessed Earth by Ted Genoways

Author:Ted Genoways
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

INTERLUDE

BRANDING CALVES

April 2015

On a sun-soaked day in mid-April, the Hammonds corralled the cattle back into the paddock behind the old barn. The nursing mothers were separated from their spring calves, just as they had been in the fall, and then locked into neighboring pens for the night. Rick said it was probably eleven o’clock before the cows settled down and stopped mooing, slipping into sleep in the darkness, but they were up again before dawn, calling to their calves. By mid-morning, when the veterinarian arrived, the cows were noisy and rattling the gates of the corral. The sun was pale-bright again, washing everything into pastel hues, thin wisps of high cirrus clouds the only interruptions on the cornflower sky. The pristine clarity and spring-like promise in the air, even touched as it was with the last of winter’s chill, seemed strangely at odds with the task ahead.

It was branding day, one of Meghan’s least-favorite parts of the whole farm year, and she was feeling short-tempered and stand-offish. She wore a down vest over her sweatshirt and a loose-knit stocking cap, with her long hair swept to one side. When her temper flared, she would rip off the cap and tuck it impatiently into her back pocket, then pull it back over her ears when her mood cooled. Everything about the day seemed to be getting on Meghan’s nerves. She didn’t like how stressed the calves were: mewling and skittish, huddling together, face-in, in the corner of their pen. Seeing how jittery and strained they already were, she was pissed that Dave was using an electric prod to hustle some of the calves down the chute, and she was surly about the very idea of hot-branding. “It is hard on the animal,” Rick conceded, “but they bounce right back.” Meghan just didn’t see any good reason for it. In an era when consumers are concerned about animal welfare, she worried it was a potential deal-breaker with boutique buyers.

More than that, it was unnecessary work, considering that there are more modern and pain-free methods of keeping track of individual animals. The cattle already had ear tabs to identify them within the herd. Those cheap plastic tags were hand-numbered by Kyle and catalogued with corresponding health information in Meghan’s record books, an old-fashioned way of keeping inventory of the herd that required her to mark down information on the animals one by one. When the first calf lurched into the cradle, the trap closing around it with a hollow clang, Meghan yelled out, “What’s the number?” Her older brother Jesse, back in town for the time being and charged with applying the brand, called back, “That’s one-twenty-two.” She echoed, “One-two-two,” entering the number into her spiral notebook. Then she wheeled away as Jesse lifted the brander.

If, instead, the Hammonds used electronic identification (EID) ear tags, which have a fifteen-digit visual label specific to each individual and also contain a chip that can be read by an EID reader, then there would be no need to brand the cattle at all.

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