Branding livestock, especially cattle, has been a tradition for thousands of years as a way to mark animals and identify their owners. Before fences became widespread on large cattle ranches, cattle from neighboring ranches often mingled, so branding helped show which cattle belonged to which ranchers. In the days of free roaming on the range, it also deterred cattle rustling and helped return rustled animals to their rightful owners. In the past, law-abiding ranch hands kept handwritten and carefully illustrated brand books to identify and sort their cattle. Today, brands are required to be registered with the state. Livestock is not required to be branded or have ear marks, but if this kind of identification is used, it must be registered by law. Originally, livestock branding referred only to hot branding large stock with a branding iron, but the term now includes alternative techniques. Other forms of livestock identification include freeze branding, inner lip or ear tattoos, earmarking, ear tagging, and radio-frequency identification, which uses a microchip implant. Although fencing is more prevalent today, branding is still used to identify cattle. A ranch brand is part of the history and culture of cattle ranching. Traditionally, brands use specific numbers or letters to represent the ranch and owner. Most brands in the United States include capital letters or numbers, often combined with symbols such as a slash, circle, half circle, cross, or bar. These brands have a specialized language for calling the brand. Some owners prefer simple pictures, which are called with a short description of the picture, such as rising sun. Reading a brand aloud is called calling the brand. Brands are called from left to right, top to bottom, and, when one character encloses another, from outside to inside. Brands have been passed down for generations to represent a family ranch, and ranchers use them not only to identify their cattle but also as a source of pride in their ranching heritage.