To look up a California livestock brand, download the California Brand Book as a free PDF from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Bureau of Livestock Identification page, or order it on CD for $30.1California Department of Food and Agriculture. California Brand Book The Brand Book is the official published record of every registered livestock brand in the state, and it can be searched two ways: by the owner’s last name or by the brand’s visual description. Because the current edition dates to 2010 and no fully searchable online database has replaced it, confirming a brand’s present status usually means calling the Bureau of Livestock Identification (BLI) in Sacramento at 916-900-5006.2California Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Livestock Identification
How to Use the California Brand Book
The PDF is organized in two sections. The first lists brands alphabetically by the registered owner’s last name, which is the fastest route if you already know who you’re looking for. The second is arranged in what the industry calls “brandabetical” order, sorted by the visual description of the mark rather than the owner. Each entry shows the brand design itself, the body position where it’s approved for use, and the name of the registered owner.
If you’re identifying a stray animal or verifying a brand you saw at auction, brandabetical is the section you want. Owner-order only helps when you have a name in hand.
Describing a Brand So You Can Find It
Brandabetical searching depends on knowing the verbal name of what you’re seeing. California follows the standard cattle-industry conventions: a sideways letter is a “Lazy” letter, so a sideways S is a “Lazy S.” A letter inside a circle becomes a “Circle T” or “Circle B.” Numbers, bars, slashes, and combinations each have their own naming pattern. Once you can describe the mark the way the book indexes it, the entry is straightforward to locate.
Why You Should Still Call the BLI
The 2010 Brand Book won’t reflect anything that has happened to a brand in the years since: new recordings, transfers to different owners, suspensions, or forfeitures. The BLI maintains the live database and can confirm whether a brand you found in the PDF is still active, still held by the same owner, or has moved on. For any lookup where the answer actually matters (a purchase, a transport, an ownership dispute), the phone call to 916-900-5006 is the step that closes the gap.2California Department of Food and Agriculture. Bureau of Livestock Identification The bureau’s office is located at 1220 N Street, Sacramento, California 95814.
The Three Parts of a Brand That Must Match
A California brand is not just the mark on the hide. It’s the combination of three things, and all three matter when you’re trying to match an animal to a record.
The Design
The design is the visual mark itself: letters, numbers, symbols, or combinations. To be registered at all, a design must be distinguishable from every other recorded brand in the state, capable of producing a clean, recognizable mark on a hide, and simple enough to describe in words.3California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Brand Registration Information
The Body Position
California law approves only six positions for a cattle brand: the shoulder, rib, or hip, on either the left or right side of the animal.4Cornell Law School. California Code of Regulations Title 3, 895 – Branding Positions For horses, a super-cold iron (freeze) brand can also be placed on the neck.5Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 3, 895.2 – Horse Record Branding Positions Position is part of the record, not just a preference. Two different owners can hold the same design if it’s registered to different positions, so when you’re doing a lookup, note where on the animal the brand actually appears. That detail is what separates one owner’s record from another’s.
The Registered Owner
The record ties the design and position to a specific person, partnership, corporation, or trust. That registration is what gives the mark legal meaning. Without a current registration behind it, a brand on an animal is just a burn.
Why the Lookup Matters
A current brand registration is strong evidence of ownership in California. The reverse is what makes the lookup worth doing before you buy, transport, or take possession of cattle: under state law, possessing an animal that carries an unrecorded, forfeited, or canceled brand creates a legal presumption that the person in possession applied the unauthorized mark themselves. That presumption shifts the burden onto the possessor to explain how they came to have the animal.6California Legislative Information. California Food and Agricultural Code 20608
So a Brand Book search that turns up nothing, or a BLI call that confirms the brand has been forfeited, is not a minor paperwork observation. It’s a warning that taking possession without resolving the discrepancy exposes you to serious legal risk. Confirming the entry, the position, and the current owner before money changes hands is how you stay on the right side of that presumption.
One boundary worth flagging while you’re in the records: a brand and the cattle wearing it are separate legal interests. Even a clean brand lookup and a valid registered owner don’t establish who owns the animal in front of you. Ownership transfer requires a brand inspection and a bill of sale in addition to whatever the brand record shows. The lookup tells you who holds the mark. It doesn’t tell you who owns the cow.
The Bureau of Livestock Identification
The BLI sits within the CDFA’s Animal Health and Food Safety Services branch and is the office responsible for the entire brand program: recording new brands, processing renewals and transfers, publishing the Brand Book, and conducting the field inspections that connect physical marks back to registered owners.3California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Brand Registration Information Its authority comes from Division 10 of the California Food and Agricultural Code.
For a lookup, the practical shortlist is short. Download the 2010 Brand Book PDF from the CDFA website and search it by owner name or brandabetical description. Note the design, the body position, and the registered owner exactly as they appear in the entry. Then call 916-900-5006 to confirm the record is still current. That sequence gets you from a mark on an animal to a verified, live registration, which is the answer most people asking about a California brand actually need.