Micro chipping/freeze marking

[podkinpie]

I now have two horses purchased with micro chips and one with a mysterious freeze mark.
I have for a while been thinking of having the others freeze marked, especially having now purchased the Icelandic.

With the ever increasing worry of theft I would be interested on your thoughts on this.

[sallyandruby]

my aunty has her horse freezemarked but he is mostly grey with patches of brown so doesnt show up very well. what colours are your horses? im hoping to get ruby frezemarked .

[julz]

SEamus is freezemarked...and i think that because it can be seen straight away (unless horse is wearing a rug) it is a better deterrant.

[madmare]

Mine is microchipped - no freezemark as yet .. I keep thinking about getting it done but due to his colouring I think I may be struggling .....

[podkinpie]

I have a mixture of colours although mostly light-2 palamino,1 grey, 1 skewbald and one dun-but they are ,except one at the moment rugged-so maybe its better to wait until the rugs are off.

[Bay Mare]

Saff is microchipped, I didn't have her freezemarked because she's grey but I'm considering a micromark.

[VictoriaA]

Willow is freezemarked and chipped, very glad I got her chipped because as she's greyed out as she's got older her freezemark has got very faint, and because she's so vet phobic I haven't suceeded in getting her remarked (2 attempts) as she goes balistic as soon as a stranger comes near her and starts trying to 'do something' to her. *sighs*
Freezemarking is a brilliant deterrent, but the reassurance of the chip as proof of ownership should a stolen horse get recovered is great too. And chipping isn't too expensive if you add it in to another vet visit so you aren't paying out the visit fee just for the chipping.

[rhillahorse]

Ours are freezemarked. It doesn't look very nice but is a good deterrent (touch wood!).

[stormhorse]

Freezemarked. Its visable so the best thing to prevent theft & if the worst does happen & they are stolen you have a MUCH better chance of someone seeing it & you getting your horse back.

[sara]

Lloyd is both freeze marked and microchipped. I would normally do both, however, Lloyd is grey and I think it was a complete waste of time and money to get him freezemarked, as you just can't see it unless he is clipped

sara
xx

[emmalouise]

aingeal and toya are both microchipped with freezemarks in the shape of a horse shoe aingeals is on her bum and toyas is on the only big patch of black on her this way it tells people that they have a microchip.
and muffin and velvet both have microchips but no freezmark because it would cover most of their little bodies!!!(they are shetties!(
and sugar we dont know if she has a microchip or not so need the vet to check her out!

[kizmet]

Mine has both

[Gail&Merlin]

glad this thread has come up, i was wondering about freezemarking dancer, but as hes palo you probably wouldnt see it!

[Claire MK]

Mine are microchipped but I am going to get them freezemarked in the spring. Not sure whether to get the micromark or a numerical/alphabetical one though.

[SarahW]

I have had Petra micro-chipped as a result of a recent case in which the courts held that a horse could only be definitively identified by micro-chip. On the other hand, freeze-branding acts as a good deterrent in the first place. I wondered whether micro-chipping would cause pain but found that Petra hardly noticed it at all - she didn't think of much of the reader making a bip-beep noise. Freeze marking does come some discomfort while it is being done although i haven't seen a horse react violently to it. I'm afraid my New Forest ponies had to be hot branded so that they could live out on the Forest (New forest byelaws insist at the moment). I had them sedated and full of Bute so that it would minimise any trauma and they hardly seemed to notice at all. Next year we may be able to have their foals just micro-shipped although a lot of the commoners will stick to hto branding so that the athe ponies can be easily identified from a distance.