To do a California livestock brand lookup, start with the California Brand Book, a PDF you can download free from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Bureau of Livestock Identification page, or order on CD for $30.1California Department of Food and Agriculture. California Brand Book The book lists every brand recorded in the state as of 2010. For anything registered, transferred, suspended, or forfeited since then, call the Bureau of Livestock Identification (BLI) in Sacramento at 916-900-5006.2California Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Livestock Identification There is no fully searchable online database.
How to Search the Brand Book
The Brand Book is organized two ways, and the one you choose depends on what you already know.
If you have a name, use the alphabetical section. Entries are sorted by the owner’s last name, and each one shows the registered brand design along with its approved body position on the animal.
If you only have the brand itself, use the “brandabetical” section. This sorts brands by their visual description rather than by owner, so you need to be able to put what you see into words before you can find it. Each entry pairs the design and body position with the current registered owner.
Printed copies of the Brand Book are no longer available. The PDF and CD are the only published formats, and both reflect the 2010 edition.
Describing a Brand So You Can Find It
Brandabetical lookups rely on standard cattle-industry conventions for naming marks. A sideways letter is “Lazy,” so a horizontal “S” is a Lazy S. A letter inside a circle is a Circle T, Circle B, and so on. If you can describe what you see on the hide using these conventions, you can usually locate the matching entry.
A full record ties three things together: the brand design (letters, numbers, symbols, or combinations), the body position where it’s burned, and the registered owner. All three matter, because two different brands can share the same design as long as they’re registered for different body positions. California law allows cattle brands in six positions: shoulder, rib, or hip, on either the left or right side.3Cornell Law School. California Code of Regulations Title 3, 895 – Branding Positions Horse freeze brands can also appear on the neck.4Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 3, 895.2 – Horse Record Branding Positions So when you look up a brand, note where on the animal it appears, not just what it looks like.
Why You May Still Need to Call the BLI
The 2010 cutoff is a real limitation. The Brand Book won’t show you:
- Brands recorded after 2010.
- Transfers to new owners since 2010.
- Brands that have been suspended or forfeited for nonpayment of renewal fees.
California brands require a $70 biennial renewal, and a brand goes into suspension on April 1 if the fee isn’t paid by April 30 of the renewal year. If the suspension runs more than a year, the brand is forfeited and becomes available for anyone else to apply for.5California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Brand Registration Information A brand that was active in 2010 may belong to someone else now, or to no one at all.
The BLI maintains the live database. Call 916-900-5006 to confirm current status, current ownership, and whether a brand is active, suspended, forfeited, or recently transferred. The office is at 1220 N Street, Sacramento, CA 95814.2California Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Livestock Identification
What a Brand Record Tells You
A successful lookup returns three pieces of information.
The Design
The visual mark itself. To be registered, a design has to be clearly distinguishable from every other recorded brand in the state, capable of producing a recognizable mark on an animal’s hide, and simple enough to describe in words.5California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Brand Registration Information
The Body Position
One of the six approved cattle positions (shoulder, rib, or hip, left or right), or for horses, one of those plus the neck for freeze brands. The record will specify which position the brand is registered for.
The Registered Owner
A person, partnership, corporation, trust, or estate. This is the party legally tied to the brand. If you’re trying to identify who owns an animal, this is the name you’re looking for.
Why the Lookup Matters
A current brand registration is strong legal evidence of cattle ownership in California. The reverse is also true: possessing cattle marked with an unrecorded, forfeited, or canceled brand creates a legal presumption that whoever has the animal applied the unauthorized mark themselves.6California Legislative Information. California Food and Agricultural Code 20608 That presumption shifts the burden of proof onto the possessor.
For a buyer, this is why verifying the brand before money changes hands is worth the phone call. A design that matches an entry in the 2010 Brand Book isn’t enough on its own, because the brand may have been transferred or forfeited in the intervening years. Confirming current status with the BLI tells you whether the seller actually has standing to sell the animal under that mark, and whether the paperwork you receive will hold up at the next inspection.
For someone who’s found a stray animal, the lookup is the first step in finding its owner. Match the mark on the hide to a Brand Book entry, note the body position, and contact the BLI to confirm the registration is still active and who it currently belongs to.
One boundary worth knowing: a brand record identifies the owner of the brand, not necessarily the current owner of a given animal. Cattle change hands through brand inspections and bills of sale, and those transfers are documented separately from the brand registration itself.7Justia Law. California Food and Agricultural Code 21701-21710 – Bills of Sale A brand lookup tells you who is registered to burn that mark; it doesn’t by itself prove who owns the cow standing in front of you. For that, you need the inspection certificate and bill of sale that should have accompanied the animal through its most recent sale.