Microchips

Hey, I was just wondering if many of you chipped your rabbits. And for rescues would you check a stray/dumped rabbit for a chip. I've been considering having my buns chipped and babies in future litters as I want them to always be traceable back to me if the worst should happen, (I lost track of a rabbit this year sadly due to the death of her owner... I now have no way of knowing where this little guy is, so i was thinking if i'd have chipped him, if he ended up in a rescue or abandoned, then they'd have my contact details) - but a few rescues i've asked have said they've never checked a rabbit for a chip ...

If any animal came in as a stray, I'd expect the rescue to check for a chip, although that may not be the case. It just seems a sensible thing to do. An animal handed in to them by the owner probably wouldn't get scanned as standard though, because the rescue knows where it is from, so there is no need.

The RSPCA chip their animals before rehoming.

My two are chipped, but I keep forgetting to register the chip I must remember to do it.

Get them tattooed instead, then it's clearly visible.

i think rescue centres like to chip as is part of the bigger picture in being able to trace owners from dumped animals or cases of cruelty .

if like us you are not that type of person then i cant see the point of chipping , rabbits are not financially worth much so very very unlikely to be stolen unlike a £800 puppy. if any of our rabbits got out , they would not even leave the gaden , they are too dependant on the house.

we,ve never bothered

let the flaming commence !! cant even put a photo on here at the moment without a " wheres the hay " comment , so im sure not chipping rabbits will be a cardinal sin :lol:

Most vets will check a stray animal for a microchip. We had Zebedee checked for a chip when we found him. I've also had stray dogs checked when they weren't wearing a collar and that meant we could take them back to their rightful home. I had Twinkle and Star done a couple of weeks ago, and think we will get them all done at some point.

Not sure where you would stand with keeping the animal registered in your name and address though if you have homed them elsewhere? Surely you'd need to let the owner know and they can then register the animal in their name since it legally belongs to them? :?

PS Neill, not flaming you or anyone else here but I have sadly heard of pet rabbits getting stolen from people's gardens and then of course there are escapees....

bethepoet said:

Get them tattooed instead, then it's clearly visible.

Click to expand...

I think the OP sells pure-bred rabbits, and their owners may want to show them, so I'm not sure, but I think tattooing the rabbits may put the potential owners off.

nessar said:

I think the OP sells pure-bred rabbits, and their owners may want to show them, so I'm not sure, but I think tattooing the rabbits may put the potential owners off.

Click to expand...

Oh right. In that case, chipping is the way to go I would think.

ETA: to answer the question, I don't chip or tattoo as I have inside buns.

becki_moorcroft said:

if he ended up in a rescue or abandoned, then they'd have my contact details

Click to expand...

This is where the difficulty will lie - if an animal is scanned for a chip and the person with the animal is not the registered owner, the vet etc are legally not allowed to give the animal back to them without the registered chip owner's permission. This means that any time they went to the vet, if they were scanned for a chip, the vet would legally not be allowed to let the owner go home with their animal until they had got hold of the person to whom the chip is registered. So the chip would need to be registered to the new owner, which would defeat the object from your point of view, or if it's registered to you, the new owner would need to be aware and happy with that (personally I would not be happy with what I considered to be 'my' animal being registered to someone else), not to mention the practicalities of you always (and I do mean absolutely always) needing to be contactable in order that an owner can simply go to the vets.

I would say this, but I'd argue that the best way to not have to worry about such an eventuality is simply not to breed. There's already 67,000 bunnies taken into rescues in the UK every year; so not breeding would absolutely prevent the possibility of any more ending up in rescue or abandoned - and would mean there were more people available to give rescue bunnies homes instead

I wouldn't chip my bunny as he would have to be like Houdini + to get out so it's pointless.

I would expect a vet to scan any lost animal though for a chip? Perhaps they don't though reading this!

Santa said:

This is where the difficulty will lie - if an animal is scanned for a chip and the person with the animal is not the registered owner, the vet etc are legally not allowed to give the animal back to them without the registered chip owner's permission. This means that any time they went to the vet, if they were scanned for a chip, the vet would legally not be allowed to let the owner go home with their animal until they had got hold of the person to whom the chip is registered. So the chip would need to be registered to the new owner, which would defeat the object from your point of view, or if it's registered to you, the new owner would need to be aware and happy with that (personally I would not be happy with what I considered to be 'my' animal being registered to someone else), not to mention the practicalities of you always (and I do mean absolutely always) needing to be contactable in order that an owner can simply go to the vets.

I would say this, but I'd argue that the best way to not have to worry about such an eventuality is simply not to breed. There's already 67,000 bunnies taken into rescues in the UK every year; so not breeding would absolutely prevent the possibility of any more ending up in rescue or abandoned - and would mean there were more people available to give rescue bunnies homes instead

Click to expand...

Nice and smooth

Very good point, though. It's either your name and the actual owner doesn't have any rights, or their name and you don't have any rights, which technically you shouldn't have anyway but in the case of an emergency would be necessary. Tricky one.

Santa said:

This is where the difficulty will lie - if an animal is scanned for a chip and the person with the animal is not the registered owner, the vet etc are legally not allowed to give the animal back to them without the registered chip owner's permission. This means that any time they went to the vet, if they were scanned for a chip, the vet would legally not be allowed to let the owner go home with their animal until they had got hold of the person to whom the chip is registered. So the chip would need to be registered to the new owner, which would defeat the object from your point of view, or if it's registered to you, the new owner would need to be aware and happy with that (personally I would not be happy with what I considered to be 'my' animal being registered to someone else), not to mention the practicalities of you always (and I do mean absolutely always) needing to be contactable in order that an owner can simply go to the vets.

I would say this, but I'd argue that the best way to not have to worry about such an eventuality is simply not to breed. There's already 67,000 bunnies taken into rescues in the UK every year; so not breeding would absolutely prevent the possibility of any more ending up in rescue or abandoned - and would mean there were more people available to give rescue bunnies homes instead

Click to expand...

When we chipped Cats Protection League kittens/cats the codes were all the same bar a couple of digits which were unique to each cat. I think that code belongs to the rescue/breeder so they can be traced back. I think we might even have entered where they originally came from (ie. CPL) on the form too

Neill said:

i think rescue centres like to chip as is part of the bigger picture in being able to trace owners from dumped animals or cases of cruelty .

if like us you are not that type of person then i cant see the point of chipping , rabbits are not financially worth much so very very unlikely to be stolen unlike a £800 puppy. if any of our rabbits got out , they would not even leave the gaden , they are too dependant on the house.

we,ve never bothered

let the flaming commence !! cant even put a photo on here at the moment without a " wheres the hay " comment , so im sure not chipping rabbits will be a cardinal sin :lol:

Click to expand...

Actually it is often the opposite, I've read chipping being described as causing the animal unnecessary pain and stress on here, and implying it is almost cruel to put them through it.

Petrack sell the chips to rescues and breeders, when I last spoke with them they sold a box of 25 for £141. This would mean that you can register the dog under dual ownership for its life and can check up on the dog throughout its life. The initial address on the chip would be yours and is unchangable.

Basically each time you want a bunny chipping you take your own chip to your vets who will implant it for you for either free or minimal charge Does that help?

nessar said:

Actually it is often the opposite, I've read chipping being described as causing the animal unnecessary pain and stress on here, and implying it is almost cruel to put them through it.

Click to expand...

I must admit this was one of my concerns before we took Twinkle & Star, I'm sure it can be seen from both ways, but in T&S's case they seemed unphased by it (afterwards, I didnt see it being done though)

we have chipped some of ours -

so why did we chip the ones we did???

We chipped the ones that are more 'adventurous' and might try and get out of the garden (mosty those who we originally found as strays or escapees locally)

We chipped the ones that use the cat flap in the back door (ie indoor/outdoor buns) so they can use it as it is micro-chip sensitive only letting specific chipped animals in/out

We are just about to chip the x3 wildies - so IF they ever got lost we would not wonder if we had 're-captured' the wrong bunny!!! also so we can tell them apart!

we also chipped our tortoises for ID as they are valuable

Thank you for your replies, theres still a lot to think about

As for tatoos, show rabbits are allowed to be tatooed however I personally dont like it and wouldn't want to put 12 week old rabbits through a tatoo.

The ownership point is tricky, most of my new owners dont have a problem with keeping in touch, most of my rabbits have gone with rings on. The rings are registered in my name and the new owners are aware of this, I just put the ring number in my records along with their contact details, so if the rabbit ever came back to me through the ring I can get in touch with the owners. I would imagine I could run the ownership on the chip in the same way and write it into my contract. In terms of it someone wasnt happy with that, then I just wouldnt sell a rabbit. New owners have to agree to my terms and contract.

The issue with rings is obviously they can be removed easily if a rabbit is stolen (more my benefit than pet owners possibly, but with people offering large sums of money for some rabbits the thought of 'theft' does hang in the back of your mind.) and i've recently found out that even if someone found a rung rabbit apparently the BRC will not give out the breeders details unless the person is a BRC member, so they're useless in terms of contact details, which is why i'm now thinking about chips.

Its not really an issue most of the time, i'm in close contact with nearly all the rabbits that i've rehomed, but it doesnt stop me wanting to be traceable in the future. The rabbit in question was re-homed following the owners death by his daughter, she didnt have my contact details and didnt find out untill i got in touch a few days ago to find out how the rabbit was doing. It wouldnt have made any difference in this case I dont suppose, but if she had instead handed the bun into a rescue or taken it to a vet then my details could have been found.

And although its never been a problem in the past there is always the fact that if someone knows that their rabbit can be traced they are less likely to 'dump it', 'give it away' and return it to me.

helen01 said:

Petrack sell the chips to rescues and breeders, when I last spoke with them they sold a box of 25 for £141. This would mean that you can register the dog under dual ownership for its life and can check up on the dog throughout its life. The initial address on the chip would be yours and is unchangable.

Basically each time you want a bunny chipping you take your own chip to your vets who will implant it for you for either free or minimal charge Does that help?

Click to expand...

I really like that idea, if it was possible to have the new owners as the main contact but with myself as a back up contact. I will look into that further, and thats much cheaper than i thought it would be.

a good topic and very interesting, Tameside rabbit rescue chip all their rabbits before re-homing , The rspca that she is linked with " Insist " on it being done, they support her in a small financial way and look after her website ect. I went to see her last week and she told me this , she never used to bother .

Neill said:

i think rescue centres like to chip as is part of the bigger picture in being able to trace owners from dumped animals or cases of cruelty .

if like us you are not that type of person then i cant see the point of chipping , rabbits are not financially worth much so very very unlikely to be stolen unlike a £800 puppy. if any of our rabbits got out , they would not even leave the gaden , they are too dependant on the house.

we,ve never bothered

let the flaming commence !! cant even put a photo on here at the moment without a " wheres the hay " comment , so im sure not chipping rabbits will be a cardinal sin :lol:

Click to expand...

I didn't mean it nasty sorry if you took it the wrong way

its also possible to learn to microchip yourself, but you need at least 2 pairs of hands and be strong enough to stick a needle in a baby! :shock: I have a certificate to microchip cats

me bunnehs no chips, em steyn in ows.