Waiting for the brand inspector.

[Kali]

So I'm selling a couple of animals to go for natural, organic beef to some friends that sell at local farmers' markets. (we don't implant or feed weird stuff - just minerals and natural range pasture) Animals must have a brand certificate or be inspected before they can be moved or sold in Arizona (to prevent theft - don't get me started on how "effective" this actually is). Established ranchers are allowed to "self inspect" but only for moving from pasture to pasture, to an auction, or to a slaughter facility. To sell to another individual there has to be an inspection by a state livestock inspector.

Not that most of them can read a brand or know much about cattle, but that is another story. So yesterday I was waiting all day for the call and was going to meet the inspector at the neighbors' place because they have a scale and were having something inspected as well. Save everybody some time and effort, right? I never got the call, so I didn't take my animals over to the neighbors. But of course the inspector made it over there. So now I have to hurry up and wait. Got them loaded and the inspector is going to call and meet me at the end of our road after he gets done with something else. Now, the nature of this activity is that his next call could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 hours. So my animals have to stand around in the trailer for however long that is so we can be ready to go when the call comes.

I hate leaving them standing there, they tend to fidget and fight each other when they are confined to such a small area, not to mention losing pay weight like I wish I could for myself. :mad:

They should have been relaxing on irrigated pasture by now not standing around in corrals and trailers for 3 or 4 days, eating the equivalent of junk food (my horses' good alfalfa hay) I should have got some cow hay (grass or oat or something less "rich") but thought this would be a 24 hour deal and would be over with.

Nice that we have like 15 inspectors for the ENTIRE state.

[achtung_circus]

1. Wannabees, a lot of them.

I have memories of new Brand Inspectors who 2 weeks after starting the job had purchased the boots, the Wranglers, the belt, the buckle and the hat.

Their voices had changed and they were drawling more.

Still scared spitless (well, at least it rhymes) of anything over 1,000 pounds, or with horns, or with a heads-up outlook on life.

But put those clippers in their back pocket to trim hair to view the brand better and they were WESTERN goddammit.

The producer has the privilege of paying $1 per head for what is often of the time a waste of time.

[Kali]

2. Hey AC

:hi:

$1 per head? $.25 per head inspection, $1 per to beef council, $3 "service charge" = $5.50 I get to pay for waiting two days the second of which I spent an hour sitting in a cold vehicle at the end of my road because he ended up running late.

Good inspector and knows the locals, including the ones to watch out for and kindly gave me a heads up about one of the new employees at the local "changes hands to a new rich owner every few years" place. Seems he let someone else do jail time for some rather unsavory activities including butchering some registered Hereford heifers for meat.

The problem is that Arizona, despite the vast open space, is really an urban state. The vast majority of the people living here live in Maricopa and Pima counties and so there isn't much representation (or respect, or services) for the rural communities. That translates to poor medical services, police and of course things like livestock inspectors. (yet they still vote republican) My inspector has a HUGE area to cover and with the change from ranch and farms to horsey ranchettes, they have a lot more work with a lot more idiots. I have seen bad ones, that is for sure, and in my experience the ones working the sale barns are not real good at reading brands! But in spite of the communication problems the one working my area isn't that bad.

[achtung_circus]

3. Yeah, $1.00 per head.

That pays for brand inspection only. There are additional check-offs for the commodity producer groups. Many of the "inspections" at sales barns are pro-forma; who brands dairy cows, for example. Many people with their own pasture don't brand. If you are running cattle on community pasture or grazing leases then they must be branded.

Of course, that doesn't apply here in Ontario where the only brands I see are on Western cattle, hell you don't even need a manifest to transport livestock, althoug, in a classic example of bureaucratic WTF you do need a manifest to transport eggs.

:toast: