Branding

It's a spring morning in Idaho cattle country where you hear the birds singing and if you are really lucky, you see the roundup of cattle…a spring tradition. “What's going to happen today is we will be roping and branding.” Five year old Kellan Morah and family, owners of SS Cattle Company in Cambridge, Idaho have been practicing the tradition of cattle branding for over 125 years. As the saying goes, this ain’t Kellan's first rodeo. “I've been branding for five years.” Father, Mark Morah says branding on the SS spread has always been about family. Young and old. “We like having the kids and the older generation with us in the branding crew and we keep it pretty low key and small and slow. We brand them and vaccinate them just like the vaccinations you give your kids. Most of these calves are two weeks to a month and a half old. We earmark them and brand them. Everybody thinks the earmark is painful but it's not. It's a little bit of cartilage. Ours is a double under slope on both ears and then the brand so we can identify them when they are away from home and not in a crowd.” It also takes a little help from friends like Patty Devaney who's been helping out for the last 10 years. "Gosh I was thinking this morning how long it's been. I'll bet it's close to 10 years that I have been coming up and helping. Phone call, text, however they get a hold of me, I always save my dates for them.”