Food and Agricultural Code, 1967

The board must assist the director and the Chief of the Bureau of Livestock Identification in administering and enforcing certain cattle-protection provisions, and it must make recommendations to the director.

Board members must confer with specified livestock-related officials and groups about matters involved in administering the Bureau of Livestock Identification’s enforcement functions.

The board must make recommendations to the director and the Chief of the Bureau of Livestock Identification on specified enforcement, procedures, theft prevention, budgeting, and legislation topics.

The board must meet when called by its chairperson and must meet at least twice each calendar year.

The board must hold its meetings in the department’s offices at Sacramento, or elsewhere in the state when needed to properly perform its duties.

This section states that the division’s purpose is to provide for statewide recordation of brands, with the whole state treated as one branding district.

Brands made to show ownership of cattle may be recorded under this chapter; brands used for other purposes may not be recorded.

The chief must make regulations setting where different types of brands may be placed on an animal.

A person must not brand any animal unless the branding complies with this chapter.

A person may not use an unrecorded, forfeited, or canceled brand.

A person must not apply a recorded brand anywhere on an animal except at the location shown on the brand registration certificate.

A person must not use a cattle brand that indicates ownership unless the cattle are theirs or the owner has authorized it, and the brand is recorded in the owner’s name and filed with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

Proof that a person possessed or owned cattle with an unrecorded, forfeited, or canceled brand creates a rebuttable presumption that the person branded the cattle with that brand.

In disputes over animal title, proof of the animal’s brand creates a rebuttable presumption that the brand owner owned the animal while the brand was duly recorded.

Owners of qualifying out-of-state cattle may apply to the director for a permit to brand them with another state’s brand, and the director may issue the permit only if the listed conditions are met.

This section defines venting a brand as rebranding a branded animal by the animal’s owner to void the prior brand.

A vent brand may be applied on the loin of an animal if it matches the side of the owner’s registered brand.