Horse microchipped but....

I

icestationzebra

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 November 2004
Messages
5,378
Location
Leicestershire
Visit site
chip can't be found!

This refers to a recently purchased horse who has a microchip barcode in his passport but the vet could not locate it during the vetting. He commented that sometimes they don't go in properly and fall out, or move around.

The horse clearly matches the passport, but for my peace of mind I want him chipped. Has anyone had a horse re-chipped? Do you just get your vet to put a new serial number in the passport and sign it. I've got to send the passport away to Horse Sport Ireland (I think!) to register my ownership and wanted to make sure they didn't query this.

Anyone else had to do this?

Many thanks
:)
 
I dont think they will care about a microchip.

Few years ago I went to look at an irish horse that was for sale, he was microchipped. Looked him up on NED, and it turned out he was a full TB, not the ISH that the owner thought. What was even worse that the HSI, or whoever did the passport, just did him a new passport with the exisiting microchip in it. They never checked what the chip was registered to!
 
No advice on getting the horse re-chipped but (silly question) have you tried to find the chip with a different scanner?

I had a horse vetted that I was selling once and the vet tried for half an hour to find the chip and couldn't - he basically implied I must have been lying about the horse being chipped. Now the horse was chipped during my ownership so I was sure it was in there and insisted quite strongly that it was there.

Toward the end of the vetting another of the vets came back in from calls and they used their scanner - chip located straight away. Farcically it turned out that the batteries in the other scanner were low! Sounds funny and unbelievable but it nearly cost me the sale of the bloomin' horse! :rolleyes:
 
As wellas using a different scanner its also worth scanning both sides as although the chip is normally on the near side it has been known for some vets to put it in the off side.
 
If you do have to get a new chip in, contact HSI to check the procedure. For my pony (Connemara), I had to send his passport to the CPBS, get them to update the passport with his chip number and they sent out the chip to me, for my vet to put in. (Just in case the HSI issue their own microchips too.)

I'd go for re-scanning first though, a pony a friend used to own was found to have 2 microchips, one on each side of the neck, probably from where something similar happened.
 
My mare was scanned on vetting 4 years and the chip found which matched her passport

I borrowed a scanner last month to check a stray cat for a chip, my own cat and other chipped pony's were found with the scanner easily but not the mare and I tried several times and all over her.

I'm sure I remember a post from one of the stolen horse register people where they say that there are different chips which require different scanners.
 
One of mine was scanned for her EVA/CEM tests, and the chip was picked up straight away.

I then had to have her DNA'ed earlier this year, and they scanned her again, took 5-10mins to find the chip this time!
 
ailbheg said:
If you do have to get a new chip in, contact HSI to check the procedure. For my pony (Connemara), I had to send his passport to the CPBS, get them to update the passport with his chip number and they sent out the chip to me, for my vet to put in. (Just in case the HSI issue their own microchips too.)

I'd go for re-scanning first though, a pony a friend used to own was found to have 2 microchips, one on each side of the neck, probably from where something similar happened.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I'll drop them an email :)
 
Definitely rescan. When I was buying a youngster this year the vet couldn't find the chip on vetting. (I had known horse since a foal so knew all was above board). Further down the line I was getting horse vaccinated and asked vet to check chip again. Yep, all was fine - he reckoned the batteries must have been getting low the first time.
 
I took my Shagya mare to an event recently, they could not find the chip and the vet thought it was on her right hand side as she was imported from Hungary.

Actually she was chipped by my local vet on the left, with me present, so I know it was done correctly.

I would re-scan
 
We had to rechip one foal prior to export to Italy, he had been chipped at 4 weeks as all of ours are. However on getting his health check prior to export the chip couldn't be found, by the same vet the put it in! So he was rechipped. It can happen.
 
Chips do fail, but it's extremely rare, and rarer than the stories you hear. Unless the horse was chipped somewhere odd like Asia then the scanner should read the chip - all UK, Irish, European, NOrth American chips should read fine with a standard ISO scanner.

Chips don't tend to migrate far in horses, unlike cats and dogs. In cats and dogs they are inserted into the subcutaneous space between the shoulder blades and they can move around within this space on occasion - we have one client's dog whose chip is in his chest area. Horses' chips are implanted into the nuchal ligament (the firm strap-like ligament which lies along the crest). If they are correctly inserted into this they are anchored and really only move if there is something like a pocket of infection. Because the crest is only 5-10cm wide the chip should be in about the middle, regardless of which side it was implanted from. It should be readable from either side of the neck so the side of implantation really shouldn't matter, although some do definitely scan better on one side or the other.

I suspect low batteries may be the problem. I've never had a chip fail to scan that didn't subsequently scan fine once the scanner batteries are changed. Unfortunately they seem to lose power even before the low battery warning comes on so it's not always obvious.
 
Gamebird said:
Chips do fail, but it's extremely rare, and rarer than the stories you hear. Unless the horse was chipped somewhere odd like Asia then the scanner should read the chip - all UK, Irish, European, NOrth American chips should read fine with a standard ISO scanner.

Chips don't tend to migrate far in horses, unlike cats and dogs. In cats and dogs they are inserted into the subcutaneous space between the shoulder blades and they can move around within this space on occasion - we have one client's dog whose chip is in his chest area. Horses' chips are implanted into the nuchal ligament (the firm strap-like ligament which lies along the crest). If they are correctly inserted into this they are anchored and really only move if there is something like a pocket of infection. Because the crest is only 5-10cm wide the chip should be in about the middle, regardless of which side it was implanted from. It should be readable from either side of the neck so the side of implantation really shouldn't matter, although some do definitely scan better on one side or the other.

I suspect low batteries may be the problem. I've never had a chip fail to scan that didn't subsequently scan fine once the scanner batteries are changed. Unfortunately they seem to lose power even before the low battery warning comes on so it's not always obvious.
Click to expand...

Thanks GB - that's reassuring. My vet didn't do the vetting, so I will get him to rescan and take it from there :)

Thanks all :)
 
My big mare that i've had from 4 months old was chipped as a 9 month old, she is now 9 yrs.
One of the times she was revaccinated the vet had a student and let them scan her for her microchip - but it couldnt be found after quite a while and on both sides of her neck.

As a result I got a free visit from the head of the vets practive with a better scanner, it took a while and was found on the opposite side of her neck to where it shoudl have been so it has moved as she has grown up - but it is there.

We also have a tb, who has 2 microchips. One is an original wetherbys microchip, the other was put in by a vet who was asked by her previous owner to do a passport for her as she didnt have one (she's fallen out of the racing circuit apparently due to the mares owner going bust and not paying the stud fee so no passport or covering certificate etc). That vet put his own microchip in, scanned to check it was ok and found she already had one so there are two barcodes on her passport.

But wetherbys have told us her breeding which isnt recorded in her passport so we know a bit more about her as a result!

But def get another visit with a different scanner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top