Is there anything that people are/can do to protect their own horses from theft? My understanding is that auctions and slaughterhouses aren’t required to check for microchips. Is there anything that can help in the case of a stolen horse? There was a stolen horse nearby that was never recovered, which has me wondering.
brands are certainly a deterant, but in the end, somebody determined enough will take it, regardless.
Chips can aid in the identification, I suppose (but unless smartphones get equipped to read them, I don’t see them being the cure all)
A brand can help ID a horse. I freeze branded a plain bay gelding I had with the year he was born “07” just for ID reasons. He looked liked every other plain dark bay quarter horse gelding out there. Microchips are “good” but someone has to have a reader and scan the horse so it’s usefulness has limits when time is of the essence and you want every Joe online looking for your stolen horse.
DH freeze brands his horses, for theft, identification, and business reasons. I laugh that he branded his good calf horse, as everyone on the rodeo circuit in this state knows “the Roan Mare” :lol: brand or no brand.
I just got a plain bay TB mare with the tiniest of stars, and I’m tempted to stick something on her, but she has enough bumps and scars on her legs that they serve as identifiers IMO.
Does it deter theft? Mmmm, probably not. Can it help get your horse back in the event of theft, loss during a natural disaster, etc? It can’t hurt.
Personally, I like freeze brands. They’re pretty obvious to a casual observer, hard to completely hide, and easy to customize. They can also be hidden under the mane or saddle if you don’t like the look. And it’s the sort of thing someone glancing at a pen full of horses is likely to notice and remember.
The hardest part is finding someone who does freeze branding (something I’d rather not DIY, since a mistake is forever…)
Branding can be a deterrent but it’s like locking your door: the casual thief might pass it by, the determined thief won’t.
I’ve observed both freeze and fire branding of horses. Both were done by well qualified vets. Done correctly there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them in terms of discomfort to the horse. Done wrongly either is very painful.
If you choose to brand ensure that you know and comply with your state’s brand laws.
G.
Cloudy and Hattie have their chips in their necks. I know that auctions and slaughterhouses are not required to scan for chips, but I did read over a decade ago where a slaughterhouse in Texas ID-ed a horse stolen from California by his chip. My vet, as did the vet in FL when I bought Cloudy, used the “Home Again” chip, which is pretty universally recognized by scanners.
Over a year ago a dog was turned in to the pound over by Ft Stewart, and when he was scanned prior to being Euth-ed, turns out he was stolen 10 yrs ago from NYC. He was saved and reunited with his now teenage owner. Make sure you keep a current address and phone #with the chipping service.
Before chips, I had my vet tattoo every one of my dogs and cats on their stomachs when they were altered/spayed, with my GA DL # and “reward.” Worked great on the dog’s stomachs. On cats, the hair grew back. In Atlanta, people would steal dogs from yards and sell them to Emory and the VA Hospital for $50 for practice operations for med students.
Now that GPS chips are made smaller, it may be possible to put one in horses. I looked at them back when they were bulky and put on collars on the big cats like Tigers. Too big to clamp on my horses. I want a GSP chip in the mane along with the microchip with my info on it. So I can track down my horses if they are stolen, and take care of the problem myself. I want to make sure I’m the first one to get the person who would steal them. Here in Savannah, some elderly people with memory problems wear shoes with GSP chips in them. They’ve been found by cops when they wandered off in the city and in the country. Impractical with horse shoes I think since my farrier would have to replace it every 6 weeks.
ETA Cothers in FL sometimes have freeze branded horses for recovery after hurricanes. Check with them. Cloudy has his German brand and part of his life # hot branded on his left flank, but you have to know German WBs to be able to figure out who he is by his brand.
My mare is chipped, but I didn’t do it to keep her from getting stolen. I did it because I was receiving threats that she would be stolen and I wanted a record of ownership besides her APHA papers. The sheriff’s department advised me that the papers alone wouldn’t be good enough to prove ownership and recommended that my vet put in a chip so that there would be an official record.
I was going to hot brand her (she is mostly white, so a freeze brand wouldn’t show well, if at all), but the deputy I talked to said that brand inspection isn’t required for horses here, so if she went through an auction yard the brand inspector wouldn’t catch anything anyway.
I like the idea of a GPS chip… Maybe it would help me find Zilla in the pasture when the fog rolls in.
The TSCRA inspectors keep saying brands do deter some thieves and also have helped recover plenty of horses.
They recommend owners do brand horses, also micro chips are good at least once a horse is found, to determine who it may belong to, if no other is there, like specific white markings or brands.
I say, the more you can have on your horse, the better.
Hopefully your horse will never go missing, but if it does, at least it has that bit more of a chance to get back to you if it is identifiable.
GPS chips offer a whole new range of options for the horse owner with large pastures.
G.
