• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

The South Dakota Cowgirl

Life on the Ranch Through My Lens

  • Home
  • About
    • The Cowgirl
      • The Family
      • Music
    • The Ranch
      • Terms to Know
      • Horsemanship and Horse Training
    • FAQ
  • Blog
  • My Favorite Things
  • Photography
  • Services
    • Press
  • Order Prints
  • Recipes
  • Workshops/Events
    • Women’s Retreats and Workshops
    • Women’s Photography Workshop Itinerary
  • Contact
  • Photography 101 Videos
You are here: Home / horses / Branding Season

Branding Season

May 30, 2010 by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~ 9 Comments

I told y’all I’ve been busy. In fact, today I am only blogging in the middle of the day because it rained last night. Otherwise, I’d probably be horseback right now.

In the past 10 days I’ve been to 5 brandings, and we’ll have our first branding this week, we hope. Our official party branding isn’t until Father’s Day Weekend. I digress.

At the first two brandings I branded about 100 calves.

Photo by Colette Ducheneaux
Photo by Colette Ducheneaux

At the second branding, I loaded fly tags into the gun- they look like these pictured below, but they’re not numbered and they’re sticky and full of bug repellent. If you’re wondering why ranchers use a fly tag, it’s because it allows your calf to expend less energy fighting insects and more energy growing!

Photo by Colette Ducheneaux
Photo by Colette Ducheneaux, of my broken nail.

At the third branding I started by loading fly tags, then moved to flanking the calves that they were roping and dragging to fire.

Zach dragging a calf on DX Iam Nuked (Dozer)
Zach holding a calf on DX Iam Nuked

When you hold a calf from the ground, it looks like this. Personally I’d rather have the help of a horse, but that’s just me!

Photo by Colette Ducheneaux of my dad and me holding a calf we'd flanked by hand. Whew! Now that's work!

I can’t really explain how you go from a rope to the ground, but I’ll see if I can get some photos of it at some point this year. It’s all about leverage. I can tell you that much!

After two pens of calves, I was granted permission to get on my horse and rope some calves. I didn’t have great success, but did manage to catch one, and my horse did great, which meant I had fun! I will keep practicing. Besides, practice makes perfect!

Yesterday’s branding I vaccinated and flanked. Needless to say, after two days in a row of flanking, I am one tired girl!

Vaccine Gun

I have no idea what I’ll do when we brand this week. I’ll probably do whatever Zach tells me to do! And at some point this summer I plan to learn how to castrate the little bull calves too. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend folks!

XO

[ad#Google Adsense][ad#Google Adsense]

Spread the Love!

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • Print
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: horses, ranching Tagged With: horses, ranching, Western Lifestyle

About ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.

After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her mother, who told her she had to have a “real” job after graduating college), she finally took the leap and stepped away from a regular income; trading the business suit once and for all for cowgirl boots, a hat, and jeans. She has not looked back.

When Jenn first moved to The DX Ranch on the South Dakota plains, she never imagined she’d find herself behind a camera lens capturing an authentic perspective of ranching, and sharing it with others. Jenn has always been called to artistry, and uses music, writing, images, home improvement, and her first true love of horses to express her ranching passion.

Horses are the constant thread and much of her work centers around using her unique style of writing to share her horsemanship journey with others in publications such as CavvySavvy, the AQHA Ranching Blog, the West River Eagle, the family ranch website, and her own website.

Using photography to illustrate her stories has created other opportunities -- Jenn’s brand “The South Dakota Cowgirl” has grown to the level of social media “Influencer”. This notoriety has led to work with Duluth Trading Company, Budweiser, Wyoming Tourism, Vice, Circle Z Ranch and Art of the Cowgirl, to name a few. She also serves as a brand ambassador for Woodchuck USA, Arenus Equine Health, Triple Crown Feed and Just Strong fitness apparel. Her photography has been featured by Instagram, Apple, TIME Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Oprah Magazine. Jenn’s work has been published internationally, has been seen in several books and has graced the covers of several magazines.

Jenn became a social media influencer by accident when she started to explore Instagram as a way to share her life on the ranch with folks that don’t get to experience it. It’s grown into an incredible platform that she uses to empower women, create an environment for self improvement and share life on the ranch.

When she’s not working, she loves to drink coffee, play with her naughty border collie named Copper, start ranch colts, and run about the country chasing cans. Her mother still thinks she doesn’t have a “real” job.

Give your horse or dog, or cat the gift of mobility.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thea says

    May 30, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Wow! They had a mess of help there … should go ahead and some some of those folks our way 😉 We are just finishing up our branding season, brining in the stragglers, and it’s just three of us vs. some rather robust calves!

    Loading...
    Reply
  2. The Wife says

    May 30, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    Loads of work going on there! I hate blood so I stay away from the tasks that involve that!

    Loading...
    Reply
  3. Kathryn | Alpacamundo says

    May 30, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    Wow. I’ve never been to a branding before. Thanks for sharing it.

    Loading...
    Reply
  4. Kimberley says

    May 31, 2010 at 8:37 am

    You got to wrestle calves with your Dad! That must be so much fun! I miss going to brandings, we don’t brand anymore since we just have our purebreds and since we are so swamped this time of year with other stuff we hardly get out to help the neighbors anymore!

    Loading...
    Reply
    • ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~ says

      June 1, 2010 at 10:55 pm

      We are require to brand by state brand laws. But there’s not much else on the planet quite as much fun as a good branding!

      Loading...
      Reply
  5. Maureen@IslandRoar says

    May 31, 2010 at 10:37 am

    Wow, this looks like an exhausting and probably very Loud day! I’d love to see it in person. Thanks for posting pix.

    Loading...
    Reply
  6. Brenda Berndt says

    May 31, 2010 at 8:44 pm

    Dang girl, you’ve got dangly earrings on! What a cowgirl! Happy Branding!

    Loading...
    Reply
  7. Heather says

    June 1, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    Fire, butt burning, ear piercings, thrown to the ground and a shot!
    I’d say the calfs had just as rough of a weekend as all the humans did!

    BTW…love that ring on the left middle finger.

    Loading...
    Reply
    • ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~ says

      June 1, 2010 at 10:54 pm

      Heather-that is one of my favorite rings! I wear it almost all the time! And the best part of that ring- it was cheap! Like $10 cheap!

      Loading...
      Reply

What's on your mind?Cancel reply

Footer

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 16K other subscribers

Social

  • View thesouthdakotacowgirl’s profile on Facebook
  • View @thesdcowgirl’s profile on Twitter
  • View @thesdcowgirl’s profile on Instagram
  • View @thesdcowgirl’s profile on Pinterest
Give your horse or dog, or cat the gift of mobility.

Pretty Photographs

fall work, the south dakota cowgirl, black and white, western images
the south dakota cowgirl, south dakota photography, cowboy
wild west rag co, south dakota cowgirl photography, portrait photography, cowgirls
Introspection
sleep habits of horses, how horses sleep
south dakota cowgirl photography, winter preset, winter shadows
Kansas Cowboy
Kansas Cowboy
DP8A5805-Edit
DP8A9470-Edit

© 2025 · The South Dakota Cowgirl · Powered by Imagely

 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d