Microchipping

A new law has been introduced requiring ALL equines to now be microchipped. This has been brought into force to help improve horse welfare and make it easier to trace animals that are abandoned in sometimes terrible states.

What is a microchip?

A microchip is a tiny computer chip that’s about the size of a grain of rice. It contains a unique code that matches up to your equine’s details.

Horses can be checked for a microchip using a handheld electronic device, called a scanner. When this is waved over the horse’s neck, the scanner will recognise the unique information held inside the chip.

Pros to Microchipping:

• Keeps you up to date with the law.
• Helps with horse ownership disputes as long as kept up to date.
• To identify horses that have fallen victim of abuse/abandonment.
• Purchasers and Vets can protect themselves by checking at pre purchase examinations that it is the correct horse.
• Many stolen horses have been reunited with their owners due to micro-chipping

What is involved?

Microchipping a horse is a quick and simple procedure. The chip is inserted, using a needle in the back of the neck so it doesn’t move - it is inserted into the crest of the left side of the neck and provides your horse with a unique number correlating to it's passport and to the petlog database should your horse ever go missing. It takes seconds.

Updating your passport

It is important to ensure you inform the relevant Passport Issuing Organisation so that the microchip number can be added to your horse’s record on the database. The vet that implanted the new microchip must add the barcode sticker into the passport, and sign and stamp to confirm they inserted it.

Or you can register and update details here https://www.equineregister.co.uk/home on the Equine Register to manage your passport and equine information all in the one place.

Unsure if your horse is micro-chipped?

If you are at all unsure whether or not your horse is chipped let us know and when we come out for any routine work we can scan them to see if your horse is chipped.

Please call us on for further information and to book in.