Branding in the old days
Here are some more pictures, probably from the early 1950s. In these photos, Big Dipper cattle are being worked in the upper corral that is still along Alpine Road (which, by the way, was called Alpine Creek Road by the locals, to distinguish it from the continuation of Alpine Road on the other side of Skyline Boulevard).
At this time, the calves were roped from horseback and stretched on the ground to be branded, castrated and dehorned (if needed). Dehorning was a bloody and painful process, not agreeable to man or beast. In later years Big Dipper Cattlemen used a Polled Hereford bull (no horns) so that many (but not all) of his calves would not have horns. By keeping polled heifer calves for replacements and breeding them back to a polled bull, more and more calves would be born polled.
When calves that are going to have horns are born you can feel a little bump where the horn is going to grow. In later years the bump on these calves would be treated with a dehorning paste when they were just days old. The caustic paste would sting for a little bit but it would also burn away the tiny nubbin of horn with much less pain than would be felt if they were dehorned by any one of several methods normally used at a later age when the horn had already started to grow.
Why cattle are dehorned is beyond the scope of this website. Since you are online, if you are interested you might search for that information yourself.
