Miss L Toe
Well-Known Member
Seems to me there is a need for a cheap identification system, even farmers use chipped tags for sheep's ears (as seen on countryfile), not sure if police can check for all chips and all databases.
Microchipping Tack etc
- Thread starter Miss L Toe
- Start date
Mynstrel
Well-Known Member
My OH started trying to do this as a part of his business (teaching, schooling etc) & we were up against a brick wall right from the word go. He was offering to chip & either provide saddle tags/engrave stirrup bars/stamp saddle flaps to say they'd been chipped, along with an official tag from the chip database to put on the tack too. I think he was charging about £20 for one down to about £15 for a few, & that was a one-off cost. With the way stuff gets nicked these days we thought as an idea it'd fly.
With loads of leaflets drops, demos & advertising I think he managed to do about 15. The main reponses we got were:
"it's insured anyway"
"I keep my tack at home" (what about shows?)
"it's not worth enough to bother"
"I'd sooner have it postcoded" (he offered that too & they all said no to that as well!)
So yes, although I agree completely - all of ours are done with signs on tack rooms & horse box - I think there's a general apathy in the horsey world about protecting your tack like this, it's beyond me why people will willingly spend £1000+ on a saddle then won't do anything to deter thieves!
Even when he tried to sell off the remaining chips at cost for people to insert themselves just to get rid of them nobody was interested. I even posted on here asking questions & didn't get any positive replies on here either so we gave up in the end.
And we're in an area where the police or anybody else don't offer any of these services so it's not even like they could have had it done cheaper elsewhere.
ETA - the chips used by anybody in this country will all scan using the same scanner they use for animals & I'm sure the police would have them for dangerous dogs etc, & even if you get your chip done & listed on a "private" database like a couple of the big firms do you can add it on to a national one for free, plus if the saddles are chipped there's only about 3 databases in the country to put them on so it wouldn't take much effort to check them. I do think some interest from second hand tack sellers would help though, if they scanned & visually checked any saddles going through it'd show that there was some interest in checking stuff wasn't stolen & then people might think it was worth doing.
With loads of leaflets drops, demos & advertising I think he managed to do about 15. The main reponses we got were:
"it's insured anyway"
"I keep my tack at home" (what about shows?)
"it's not worth enough to bother"
"I'd sooner have it postcoded" (he offered that too & they all said no to that as well!)
So yes, although I agree completely - all of ours are done with signs on tack rooms & horse box - I think there's a general apathy in the horsey world about protecting your tack like this, it's beyond me why people will willingly spend £1000+ on a saddle then won't do anything to deter thieves!
Even when he tried to sell off the remaining chips at cost for people to insert themselves just to get rid of them nobody was interested. I even posted on here asking questions & didn't get any positive replies on here either so we gave up in the end.
And we're in an area where the police or anybody else don't offer any of these services so it's not even like they could have had it done cheaper elsewhere.
ETA - the chips used by anybody in this country will all scan using the same scanner they use for animals & I'm sure the police would have them for dangerous dogs etc, & even if you get your chip done & listed on a "private" database like a couple of the big firms do you can add it on to a national one for free, plus if the saddles are chipped there's only about 3 databases in the country to put them on so it wouldn't take much effort to check them. I do think some interest from second hand tack sellers would help though, if they scanned & visually checked any saddles going through it'd show that there was some interest in checking stuff wasn't stolen & then people might think it was worth doing.
Last edited:
bounce
Well-Known Member
I've always had my tack stamped or micromarked free courtesy of the local police and horsewatch schemes. I wouldn't have paid to get it done as like you say, it is insured and securely kept at home.
I think you'll find that freezemark already offer a microchipping service for saddles.
I think you'll find that freezemark already offer a microchipping service for saddles.
sammiea
Well-Known Member
I would like my saddles chipped but havent so far found someone locally to do this for just my handful of saddles
unicornleather
Well-Known Member
I found the same, I offered the service of stripping the saddle down, attaching a special microchip tag to the tree so it couldn't be removed without specialist knowledge yet I only had 1 or 2 saddles in to do!
And yes they were nicked (western saddles) and NO they were never traced!
No one wanted to spend the money to have it done, think the company making them died a death in the end. No one ever scans saddles at boot sales or when going to buy secondhand off of ebay etc, so what is the point of having the saddles tagged if no one checks them?
It is only recently that more people are scanning dogs (mainly in the vets when first brought in) I have a friend who had her dogs microchipped, one was stolen never to be seen again, if the dog had been scanned it would have been found .
People just don't bother and I too had all the same answers as you gave , mainly saddle's not worth it, what they really meant was they can't be bothered!
I even offer to stamp postcode on the sweat flaps for free, and free safety saddle and bridle checks, no one ever bothers with that either!
I gave up marking tack as part of my customer service for this very reason. I just have to give insurance quotes out now for insurance claims to replace the stolen tack, rugs etc!
Oz
Last edited: