I feel silly asking this but do people microchip their horses? It seems way less painful than a brand and can identify the horse. Or is branding not that common anymore and I don't understand horses?
yes! We microchip several a year. IDK about other breed registries but the TWH registry provides microchips that go along with their papers
With AQHA, you can have their microchip # listed on their papers. But most QH people I know don't have all that information in the microchip companies database, so if you find a random horse that you think is a quarter horse, you have to send that # to AQHA and let them see if its a QH.
Another issue with microchips is location, most people chip in the nuchal ligament in the neck. But putting it in the neck is becoming more popular. The problem with that is a lot of people still aren't aware of it or don't think to look there.
But microchipping hasn't replaced brands (at least with stock breeds) because they serve different purposes. Brands are visible, you don't have to think "oh does that horse have a chip" and its kind of free advertising. When I'm at a barrel race, I see a lot of branded horses, and I can see that horse, never see its papers, and still know who raised it or trained it.
A lot of ranches that raise their own ranch horses will have a ranch brand, a brand that indicates dam or dam line, a sire brand, and a year brand. This lets anyone on that ranch know the horse's pedigree and age just by walking up to the horse, even if they dont know the horse. And cowboys aren't going to be carrying readers and a list of who had what # around when they're going out to catch a horse to work for the day.
And most brands today are freeze brands which most horses don't find painful.
