Horse Theft
Published by GHC • Sep 27th, 2008 • Category: Horse Advice, by Sweetieby Sweetie, age 12
Every horse and pony owner is worried about horse theft. But how many do enough to prevent it and how many have a way to get their horse back?
PREVENTION. The easiest way to stop your horse from being stolen is padlocks. One on the stable door, one on the paddock gate and one on the door to any storage rooms you may have. You don’t want to have a horse, but no feed, bedding or tack! It would be a good idea to put a padlock on the inside of the paddock gate, too, and electric fencing if you want to be really careful.
IDENTIFICATION. The cheapest way to identify your horse is micro-chipping. A small electronic chip that contains the horse’s owner and where they live could save your horse if he escapes, runs off or is stolen. This will help get him back, but micro-chips are invisible. The best way to identify your horse and stop horse theft is freeze marking. This mark lasts the horse’s whole lifetime, and thieves will think twice before stealing a freeze branded horse. You should also mark any equipment like tack, so that can be tracked if it is stolen.
DOCUMENTATION. You should make a chart with all your horse’s details if you want to get your horse back. It should start with your info and the the stable’s info. Then you should write every detail about your horse: how his mane lies, what he eats, how he behaves… everything! Next, you need a few clear, good photos of your horse. You should take one from each angle in different seasons and different times of the day. Make sure you have a photo of the horse’s head, and even his heels and hooves!
However careful you are, there is always a possibility your horse may get stolen. If this happens, call the police, ring local pony clubs, stables, sale yards, farriers and vets, check horse ads in your local paper, put up notices at tack shops, place ads in local papers, put flyers up, and most importantly, don’t give up!
Great blog, Sweetie! I am sure this will be very helpful to others.
mustangmane
This is a really great blog. Very informative and well written. I always enjoy your writing Sweetie. This blog was also very helpful, and if (fingers crossed) I ever get a horse, I will refer back to this blog to prevent that from happening!
XoXo
Rebecca Shyly
Horsecrazzz
Sweetie you are a genius! I’d be forever grateful you wrote this blog, because in the future when I have my own horse I can come back and read what you’ve said and prevent him or her from getting stolen. I am definitely not a big fan of branding, but freeze marks sound perfectly harmless to the horse and owner by what I’ve heard of. Great writing as always :D
Thats a really good blog! its giving me ideas for if i get a horse!
WOW!!!!!!!! sweetblog!!! im with caity it is giving me ideas for when i get a horse!!
Sincerly’,
SunstarinVermont
This is brilliant!! I can tell you are smart even though I haven’t met you. I will definitely keep this in mind whenever I get my future horse (an appaloosa). Great job : )
Thanks everyone :) They are all ideas I got when I thought about what I would do when I get a horse. As you can guess I’m quite over-protective :)
Great Blog!! I’ll be sure to check back on this when i get my horse
I wish that there wasn’t horse theifs because its soooooooooooo low!
Wow that was awesome. I do not even own a horse. But when i do i will remember to look back on these omments!
Well thanks for that advice my horse Keesha is getting freeze branded in a week now that you told me that adviceshe was already almost stolen by my nextdoor neighbor i heard winny so i ran outside and there was my nextdoor neighbors 4 yr old daughter taking my horse weird huh?well i already have locks on the stall and paddock and the tack room so i should be pretty safe!
Great job, Sweetie!
You can never be to safe!!
Great job! I enjoy reading your writings as well. You have progressed so much and it shows in your blogs, stories, ect. When I hopefully get a horse when I grow up, I will still remember this and use it! Also, what are freeze marks?
Lauren~ Freeze branding is an alturnetive to branding with a hot iron.
Freeze Branding: when freeze branding you freeze your branding iron with a special chemical(I can’t think of it right now) until the iron is VERY cold, then you aply it to the horse’s shoulder or hip, some times both if you have two brands.
How it works is unlike heat branding, instead of burning the hair and skin it freezes it much like the wart remover that you can buy at the store, leaving a tingaly feeling afterwards, but not much pain.
Each leave a lasting impresion on the skin.
How ever mean and crule this may sound to us, remember that animals don’t feel pain on the same level as us humans. They are much more durible than us and they need to be.
Hope this helps~Salina