markings doesn’t hurt. Slaughter is a messy business, and it’s a huge business.”
Brands = Controversy But not everyone is a branding proponent. Anti-branding activists have gone to extreme measures, including British activists publicly branding themselves on the chest with a hot iron in protest of branding in the dairy cattle industry. Denmark and Scotland banned hot iron branding in 2009 and 2012, respectively. After protests from animal rights activists against the branding of horses, in 2012 it was proposed that branding sport horses be banned in Germany. But there was a strong backlash from the German breed registries and the proposed ban was overturned. Today in Germany, branding policies vary by registry. According to an October 2011 article by Christa Lesté-
Lasserre in The Horse veterinary magazine, Austrian researcher Christine Aurich, a professor at the Graf Lehndorff Institute at the University of Veterinary Sciences in Vienna, set out with a research team to answer the question of whether branding is more painful than microchipping. “They studied the amount of stress brought on by iron
branding and microchip implantation in 14 young foals between one and five months old—seven were branded and seven were microchipped—and compared the results.
By measuring the foals’ heart rates, physical reactions, sali-
vary levels of cortisol (the “stress” hormone), and skin temper- atures, Aurich’s team found no significant difference in stress levels between the horses that received an iron brand on the thigh or a microchip injected into the neck.”
Warmblood Branding Branding policies vary from registry to registry. For example, the Dutch registries, both in Europe and in the U.S., do not brand. The German Oldenburg Registry microchips both here and in Europe .The Oldenburg N.A. requires branding before the age of two here in the U.S. Foals registered with the Inter- national Sport Horse Registry can be branded at any age, but it is not mandatory. Branding for the American Warm- blood Society is optional, and the RPSI (Rheinland Pfalz-Saar International) rulebook states, “From 2013, the RPSI started microchipping foals, either in addition or in place of a brand. Starting in 2016, all foals will be required to be microchipped, while branding will be optional.” Branding foals has been banned in the Netherlands for
some years; they brand three-year-olds with approval, but then the horses are bigger and stronger, so most breeders don’t bother. North Carolina breeder Maryanna Hayman, who has bred various Warmbloods over the years but now breeds
FREEZE BRANDING DOWN UNDER M
ustangs and Standardbreds aren’t the only horses that are freeze branded. In Australia and
New Zealand, most horses are branded with their breeder’s logo on one shoulder and two numbers on the opposite shoulder: the number of the horse produced that year on top and the year born below. U.S. Eventing Team member Boyd
Martin grew up in Australia and began his riding career there. His mother Toy still runs the family farm and all of the horses produced there have the Windurra logo - a Celtic trian- gle—freeze branded on one shoulder, and the two numerals on the oppo- site side. Since moving to the United States Boyd and his wife Silva, a dres- sage trainer, have imported a number of their homebred horses. “In America it’s not very trendy for
dressage horses to have freeze brands, so Silva asked Mum to stop branding the dressage horses, but I love to see our brand on the ten or so event horses that we’ve got floating around in America,” he says.
“The dressage crowd over here seems to think they look too much like racehorses with freeze brands. In Germany a brand lets you know which region a horse is from, but I think the Australian way is good because that one shoulder really acknowledges the breeder.” In Boyd’s experience, freeze brands cause the horse little to no discom- fort. “We used to get all our horses branded as foals and it appears to be painless,” he says. “You’d put a twitch on to keep them still and the guy would dip a copper brand in a bucket of liquid, then stamp it on. Initially you couldn’t even tell, because there’s no burning, but a couple of weeks later the hair changes color and the pattern appears.”
Photo: Boyd Martin and Australian-bred
Steady Eddie, showing a freeze brand on the horse’s shoul- der. The top number indicates which number the horse was foaled at the farm and the bottom number indicates the year. The opposite shoulder has the breeder’s brand/ logo (not shown).
Warmbloods Today 25
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