I'm on a Roll

Wow, 3rd post in one day... 
Here's a post focused on what we do after purchasing new cattle.  We have to brand them.
First the cattle (in this case, heifers) are pushed into the alley running to the chute.  In the picture below two heifers are walking through the alley.

 
See the blue metal thing?  That's the chute and its job is to catch the heifers when they walk into it.

  
The first heifer to walk into the chute gets closed in when the back gate shuts.  She will have to walk forward to the front gate, and then the chute operator closes the gate right as she sticks her head out.  In this picture the heifer is caught by the neck, the proper way.  She does not choke, though, so no worries.
 

 
Then Dad--or whoever's job it is-- gets the ear notcher and puts the ear tag in the heifer's ear.
  

 
She's then branded with the very hot branding iron.

 
And turned out through the front gate.  She'll now continue her life as though nothing happened and if she happens to escape, other people will know who to contact. 

 
We only had four heifers to do this time, so it went really quick.

Big J. is preparing the ear notcher for Dad, Little J. in the back pushing up another heifer

 

This is after Dad gave the heifer her ear tag

 

And if you were a heifer, this would be your view.  Lovely, isn't it?

 When we had finished, the sun was just about to set and I got a few pictures of how lovely the evening was.

 

Stacy, the goat

So now you learned a little more about what my family does.  : )