Montana Dept. of Livestock Dist. 6

02/09/2026

01/03/2026

Got the center gate back together, no more sagging.

05/20/2025

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

This is an exciting announcement that I get to share!! The ONLINE BRAND BOOK application for public use, as well as DOL use, is LIVE on the Dept of Livestock webpage!! The Online Brand Book is in real-time… as brands are issued and transferred, the application automatically updates.

On the DOL webpage is a link labeled “View Current Montana Brands”. This link takes the user to the page “View Current Montana Brands” View Current Montana Brands
The page “View Current Montana Brands” includes information and helpful hints for using the online brand book. Click the link: https://montana.servicenowservices.com/mtlvbr?id=search_mtlvbr and the brand book will open in a new tab. You can also select “View-Brands” from the dropdown list under Brand Enforcement to get to the “View Current Montana Brands” page.

Using the Online Brand Book - you can select and filter a brand look up by Counties, Physical Cities, Species, Major Character, Minor Character, Location on Animal.
You can select one filter or multiple filters.
You can clear one filter or all filters.
The book populates 50 brands to a page for viewing
The footer at the bottom of the page includes an option to page through the book or you can choose to go to a specific page, and print the page being viewed.
Spellings could also be a learning curve. For instance, in the online brand book, filter by Physical Cities there are three spellings for Helena (Helean, Helena, Helena Mt). The incorrect spellings are likely associated with how the brand owner rerecorded their brand when doing it online in 2021. They “fat-fingered” the spelling. There are a few little quirks to be learned!!

Brands cannot be searched by Brand Owner Name. To search by name, the search would need to be exact and most don’t know “the exact” of how a brand is registered.

Developing the online brand book has been a huge project that was slatted to take only a month or two but then took 5 months. Through the entire process a lot of good conversation took place, and the development was focused on the user and how to make it as easy as possible. I think that was accomplished! When you begin using it, the most important thing to remember is that the application is efficiently quick, but it also takes time for the application to read through the 51,000+ brands and then to generate through the filters being selected in the search. Be patient!

03/13/2025

02/15/2025

Some cattle were dropped off at the Lodge Grass Co yards. If these cattle are yours or you know who they belong to please come get them.

Joan Horn
Loren and Roseline Old Bear
Jennifer or Justin Hecker

12/05/2024

Trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

09/24/2024

MCA 81-4-201. It is unlawful for an owner or person in control of bison to willfully permit them to run at large.

08/09/2024

The best office view a person can have.

04/23/2024

Branding irons have always represented more than just a way to mark a cattleman’s stock. The mark left by a hot iron (or liquid nitrogen in the case of freeze branding) is special to each rancher. It is a coat of arms, a unique trademark signature that was so important to many cattlemen that they named their ranches for the brand.

Brands are designed using three major elements that make up the branding alphabet: letters and numbers, geometric symbols, and pictorial symbols. A brand also must be read correctly for the design to be understood. Ranch hands learn early that a brand is read from left to right, top to bottom, or from outside to inside.

Brands represent tradition and identity for many cowboys. It is common to find that a cowboy rides for a brand rather than for a certain owner or ranch.

𝗧𝗼 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗜𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲" 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗶𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟲𝟲𝟲𝟲 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗥𝗛𝗖 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗸.