Micro-chipping horses for identification purposes continues to catch on, even while controversy churns over a National Animal Identification System intended to improve livestock traceability.
Dr. Carl Heckendorf, a veterinarian with the Colorado Department of Agriculture, conducted a micro-chipping demonstration during the Rocky Mountain Horse Expo last weekend. The electronic chips are used for emergency preparedness, disease control and to combat theft.
To demonstrate how easy the procedure is, Heckendorf used a syringe to insert a microchip — an electronic device the size of a grain of rice — into the strong ligament that runs along the top of the horse’s neck between the ears and the withers. The chip, etched with a unique number and encapsulated in glass, is activated by a hand-held radio-frequency scanner, which reveals the 15-digit ID number and a phone number that can be called to retrieve information about who owns the horse. Once inserted, the chips are virtually tamper proof and are estimated to function for 25 years or longer.
Equine microchips fit within the parameters of the National Animal ID system. In Colorado, the microchip comes with an ID, or “smart card” as well as an official premise ID number, or PIN. Anyone in the state can get a PIN number in just 10 minutes with one call to the Ag Department, Heckendorf said. He compared it to a driver’s license number.
Equine micro-chipping is being used around the country and worldwide. Under new rules in the European Union, all horses will eventually be required to be micro-chipped. According to officials there, the regulations are intended to harmonize horse identification regulations across Europe and strengthen a system of passports, which creates life-long traceability of all horses. In Europe, where horse slaughter is legal, the horse passports are used to clearly identify those horses ineligible for the food chain due to treatments with substances potentially harmful to humans.
In the U.S., one big concern about the federal animal ID system is cost. Heckendorf said the microchip runs about $6, but depending on the vet, the entire procedure can easily cost $60 or $70. For ranchers with many horses, the costs would be especially prohibitive.
In some cases, Heckendorf has coordinated public service programs that allow horse owners to come to a central location and get their horses chipped at minimal cost.
A strong proponent of the National Animal ID System, Heckendorf sketched out several scenarios where the ID chip would come in handy to the horse owner. In a forest fire evacuation situation, emergency responders can use Colorado’s database of premise numbers to know how many animals are in an affected area and to help coordinate a response. Micro-chipped animals scattered by a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina can be identified and returned to their owners much quicker.
The spread of foreign animal diseases is also a big consideration, Heckendorf said. In one recent case that made headlines, two horses with equine piroplasmosis, a blood-borne disease spread mostly by ticks, were taken illegally after being quarantined at a Kansas City stable. The horses are micro-chipped, which is expected to help aid federal investigators with their search for the missing animals.
Other diseases of growing concern in the equine community include equine infectious anemia, equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy and equine viral arteritis, which causes reproductive problems.
Heckendorf estimates that about 60 percent of dogs are now chipped. While use of electronic tracking devices for pets is growing rapidly, National Animal ID remains a tough sell among many livestock producers.
Vets have been some of the biggest promoters of the ID program, and Heckendorf says they are the right ones to take the lead. “I deal with the producers,” he says. “I raise horses and cattle myself, and I’ve been a private practice veterinarian before I took this job. In my opinion, I would say 90 percent of people are in favor of it. But we spend 90 percent of our time talking about the 10 percent that don’t.”
Pushing a national government ID plan stirred up a fight in Colorado when show officials began requiring premise ID registrations for 4-H and FFA kids participating at livestock exhibitions and mandated it for participation at the Colorado State Fair. Those requirements contradict federal law, which to this point permits the National Animal ID program to remain strictly voluntary.
Heckendorf admitted that many opponents consider federal ID of land and livestock a property rights issue. Some ranchers might not want officials to know exactly how many cattle are running on public forestry land. Others are concerned about tax authorities. Still others believe trace-back would permit food retailers and processors to pass back additional liabilities on cattle producers. Creation of more federal bureaucracy is another drawback.
But Heckendorf gave the example of what can happen in a costly bovine tuberculosis outbreak by contrasting two dairy herds, one that participated in the ID plan and another that did not. Being enrolled in the official identification plan greatly reduced the number of animals that required disease testing, because an official record of animal movements and potential exposure was in place.
“We’re not trying to invade anyone’s privacy,” he insisted. “But agriculture has changed. In some form, we’ve got to have this.”
“I’m not into big government, but as a vet tech, I can see the need for it,” added Chris King, an administrative assistant and registrar who is generally the one to assign premise ID numbers at the Colorado Ag Department office in Denver.
Also speaking at the Horse Expo on the topic of forage management was Brett Kirch, the new youth extension director in the Department of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University. On the topic of micro-chipping horses, he said certain breeds already require it, and the state has done “a fair amount of it.”
“I look at this being more like cat and dog chipping,” he added. “I haven’t run into many people that balk at it.”
One thing that differentiates pet micro-chipping from the National Animal ID System is who holds the data, he pointed out. For pets, most of it is maintained and controlled by private entities rather than by a government agency. Management of federal ID by the U.S. Department of Agriculture makes it public data, he added, and that raises confidentiality concerns.
Even so, Kirch, who said he microchips his own horses, believes there are good reasons to go ahead and participate.
“The one thing is, as a vet, I know that if we have an outbreak or a bio-disaster and a certain portion of the livestock industry is hit, it shuts down all retail of animals,” he noted. “I understand where people are coming from on this (who oppose it), but in an emergency situation it would allow you to market your animals if you could identify them.”
More information about the Colorado identification program is available at www.coanimalid.org.
Colorado Springs —
