Equine Microchipping Reminders Offered by Animalcare Ahead of 1 October Deadline

With the deadline approaching for all horse owners in England to microchip their animals, Animalcare has produced a social media toolkit to help vets remind owners to comply with the new law.

The new law, passed in 2018, requires all horse owners to ensure their animals are microchipped by 1 October 2020. This will make it easier for local authorities and the police to track down owners who abandon their horses, helping to improve animal welfare standards, while also helping prevent horse theft. Compulsory microchipping will also mean lost or stolen horses can be reunited with their owners more easily.
In 2019, the RSPCA received more than 21,000 reports to its cruelty hotline and took 875 horses into care. Around 70 per cent of these were not microchipped. Between March and May 2020, the COVID-19 lockdown period, the charity received a further 2,000 reports about horses and says it fears for worse to come during the Winter if the economic situation in the UK becomes more challenging.
James Beaumont, Product Manager at Animalcare, said: “Microchipping is an essential but simple way to safeguard the welfare of the UK’s horses. Animalcare was the first company to offer a microchipping service with its identichip microchips, so we know from first-hand experience that microchipping is the most important step owners can take to ensure that lost, abandoned or stolen animals are quickly identified.

“Ensuring the welfare of their patients is a guiding principle for equine vets and we know that they are working very hard to remind owners of the need to ensure that their animals are microchipped and to then keep their contact details up to date. We hope that they will find our social media toolkit useful and that, between us, we can ensure that as many horses as possible are microchipped in time for the new law coming into force.”

Practices are asked to contact their Animalcare Territory Manager or contact Animalcare’s head office on 01904 487687 for the social media toolkit.