Since their first use in the mid-1980s, microchips have allowed innovative investigations into numerous biological traits of animals. Information about the implant is often imprinted on a collar tag worn by a pet Microchips are also used by kennels, breeders, brokers, trainers, registries, rescue groups, humane societies, clinics, farms, stables, animal clubs and associations, researchers, and pet stores.
Many shelters place chips in all outplaced animals. Some external microchips can be read with the same scanner used with implanted chips.Īnimal shelters, animal control officers and veterinarians routinely look for microchips to return lost pets quickly to their owners, avoiding expenses for housing, food, medical care, outplacing and euthanasia. Įxternally attached microchips such as RFID ear tags are commonly used to identify farm and ranch animals, with the exception of horses. Standard pet microchips are typically 11–13 mm long (approximately 1⁄ 2 inch) and 2 mm in diameter. The chip, about the size of a large grain of rice, uses passive radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, and is also known as a PIT (passive integrated transponder) tag. Veterinarians implanting a microchip into a dog.Ī microchip implant is an identifying integrated circuit placed under the skin of an animal.
