Branded minis

[Lauralee]

I know people who have had a stolen miniature. I feel that branding would deter theft. Not just under the mane, but right on the butt highly visible brands. In my state the slaughter houses are required by law to research any visible brands before proceeding with slaughter. Also auctions will usually document the presence of a brand.

These are the usual ways a thief would get money for his stolen horse.

One day back in the 90s when we had quarter horses, the sherrif deputy and a very angry rancher drove up fast and furiously into my yard. The man leaped from his truck and ran into my pasture, shouting back at the deputy. The deputy was telling him to wait, but the man was already in my pasture looking at my mares. The deputy said that the man had a red roan mare stolen the night before and that he needed to see all of our roan mares. We had two roan mares.

I gladly showed them every mare we had. The man was quite distraught to find that neither of my roan mares was his mare.

I told him I understood how upset he must have been.

 

[tigeresss]

Here in British Columbia, a horse that has a brand does not go through any borders, into a sale or into the slaughter house without the owner knowing. Also horses that are NOT branded are considered "fair game" if they are loose.

A lady in the interior had four VERY expensive bay warmbloods and the locals told her time and time again to get them branded but she refused. They ended up getting loose and she never got them back. An expensive lesson to learn.

I'm seriously considering getting my minis and my quarter horse branded as none of them have any markings to identify them by. The amount of horses getting stolen in BC and near where I live is rising and it's getting a bit rediculous. Microchips aren't reliable as the infomation can be easily changed, as well as there isn't a universal scanner. So scanner A can only scan chip A not chip B..and only chip B can scan chip B not chip A...and so on. Tattoos under the lip are ok but they do fade and get hard to read. Also they aren't that helpful in detering thieves. All three are able to be tampered with but I feel the brand is less likely to be tampered with.

I would freeze brand rather than hot brand...as frankly I don't know anything about hot branding. Freeze branding I know isn't painful, maybe uncomfortable but not painful and it can be done by yourself with the help of your vet.

 

[Jess P]

Woah... this just came up from 2004-land

 

[Sunny]

R3, if I were as articulate as you are, you would have taken the words right out of my mouth! I agree totally with everything you said.

I personally think a logo type brand is totally inappropriate on a show horse, and I have been very surprised on a number of occasions when I've seen branded horses in the ring and no one has said anything about it. I thought it was against the rules to have ANY form of identification on yourself or your horse, so a farm logo is dead giveaway, is it not? That's not to say that the logo will, could or would have an effect on the placing of that horse, it's just WRONG in my opinion.