Freeze Brand Identification

Key to the Alpha Symbol

Read each angle to determine

The freeze mark number

Registration Organization

Year of Birth (top to bottom)

Registration Number

8

      0  3  1  9  8  7

1

FEEZE BRANDING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is responsible for most of the wild horses and burros on public lands. The agency uses a “freeze brand” and a “signalment key code” by which the animals' visible features can be catalogued using a series of nine numbers and capital letters. The characteristics included in the code are the animal's species (horse, burro, or mule), sex, face whorls, markings on each leg, face markings, and color, with each category having a set number of defined choices. For example, a signalment code might read HM1EEEEBB; to a person with the code key, this code means that the animal in question is a male horse with one face whorl, a white "sock" marking on each leg, a "star" marking on its forehead, and that its color is bay.  Signalment will be discussed on a separate page.

     Since 1978, BLM and the USDA Forest Service have also been identifying captured wild horses by freeze marking them on the left side of the neck. Freeze marking is a highly visible and unalterable way to identify individual animals. A series of straight-line and angle symbols based on the International Alpha Angle System, each animal's unique freeze mark contains its Registering Organization (the U.S. Government), year of birth, and registration number.  This process was reportedly first used in Sweden around 1966.

     Each state where wild horses and burros are located has an assigned range of numbers unique to the animals in that state. In the illustrated sample, the registration number indicates that the animal was captured in Oregon, whose assigned numerical range is 000000 to 080000. After an animal has been freeze marked, its registration number is recorded and maintained indefinitely in BLM's database. Each freeze mark is tied to about 100 categories of information in the database, including the animal's capture date and location and the adopter's name and address.

     The brand contains the Registering Organization, Year of Birth, [2 numbers] and Registration Number [6 numbers].  Horses are freeze branded using liquid nitrogen and a special branding tool which marks the animals.  Each horse is individually identified by alpha angle symbols applied as a painless freeze brand on the left side of the neck. The brand is unique to that horse and identifies it as an official wild horse. The diagram to below shows an example of a freeze brand. Read each angle to determine the freeze mark number.

     The last six (6) numbers or symbols in the freeze brand are the Registration Numbers for each Mustang.

The Registration/s Numbers for mustang brands are related to the following numbered ranges depending on the state where the horse was gathered.

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