“Does branding hurt the calves?” Well…yes. They sure don’t like it. But cow hide is much, much thicker than human skin, and is way, way less sensitive. Their reaction to a hot iron is more of the irritation of being restrained than true pain. If you’ve never witnessed a calf get branded, then that might be hard for you to believe. But we have done hundreds and we can assure you that by the way they react, their discomfort is very minimal. It’s unreasonable to compare our human skin sensitivity t