Shoulder Branding

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17947, 26 November 1932, Page 14

Shoulder Branding

THE Sydney estimate that the damage to hides has cost the farmers of Australia £8,000,000 in the last 10 years, is “somebody’s guess,’’ an expert in the skin and hide trade told a Christchurch Sun reporter. He agreed, however, that a large sum must be lost to the farming community each year in avoidable damage to hides, particularly in branding on the butt and in horn marks on hides.

The branding in New Zealand could now bo described as moderately good, he said. There was a definite tendency toward branding on the shoulder. This was much better from the point of view of the value of the hide. Depending on the grade and weight the hide from the butt was worth from Is 8d to 2s 6d a pound. That from the shoulder was worth from 9d to lOd a lb. The saving in loss from branding on the shoulder was obvious. Horn scratches cost the farmers a lot of money and this fact was a strong argument for dehorning. Beasts travelling in trains and even penned for sale pushed and fought for room, damaging the hides considerably. It was always noticeable that beasts slaughtered on the farms did not show many horn marks on the hides. Barbed-wire scratches were, to a large extent, unavoidable. Farmers had to have barbed-wire on thenfences and animals would persist in scratching. He thought that branding on Ihe shoulder and dehorning cattle would make tho sale of hides a much more profitable business for the farmers.