# Premarin foals



## Golden Horse (Feb 20, 2010)

The industry has shrunk, and the remaining farms breed their mares to quality studs, lots of nice foals coming along.

Even in the bad old days not all foals were 'by products' my own Awesome Mr Gibbs was born on the line


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## paintedpastures (Jun 21, 2011)

NAERIC - North American Equine Ranching Council Foals PMU Foals Ranching America Ranchers and Canada Ranch Premarin

there aren't as many PMU farms as once was,but the industry has made positive changes & foals produced from these farms are just not biproducts. They are better bred & marketed to horse people, not to go to meat market:gallop:. 
The NAERIC program is a incentive fund program to get these horses out trained/ performing & able to earn money back for owners.
the farmers best interests to maintain happy safe environment for the mares as they are their livelihood. That & there are care standards for inspection that need to be met,or they can loose their business.


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Besides PMU foals, there is another set of "unwanted" foals that you don't hear much about, foals from nurse mares. There is a good rescue in Ohio that tries to adopt out a lot of these... Last Chance Corral : Ohio Horse and Foal Rescue


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

Many people got away from using Premarin.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

A lot of people quit using Premarin due to side effects. 

The nurse mare thing is, at least in my experience with local nurse mare farms, a load of bs. They have nurse mares but they keep the foals and bucket feed them or they adopt them to people who have lost foals and have mares who have milk. Their mares are then able to be sent out. The foals aren't treated as mere by-blows.


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## Rain Shadow (May 1, 2014)

PaintHorseMares said:


> Besides PMU foals, there is another set of "unwanted" foals that you don't hear much about, foals from nurse mares. There is a good rescue in Ohio that tries to adopt out a lot of these... Last Chance Corral : Ohio Horse and Foal Rescue


Its a load of BS. I have friends in the TB industry and they said they know of 12, yes 12 nurse mares nationwide that they could contact if they needed a mare to nurse a foal.


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## carshon (Apr 7, 2015)

I don't believe the TB foal issue is a load of BS. It is just a shadow industry that not everyone may know about. Rita Crundwell lived not far from me and I used to go to her production sales. there was a pen full of nurse mares and or surrogate mares with gorgeous foals at their sides. The mares were in horrible horrible shape. Feet needed trimmed - un kept looking etc. I ended up talking to a guy that worked there when I got caught in the "restricted" area where they were pastured and he told me they bring them in every year and dump them every year. I am sure other big name breeders at the sale know how this is done but I was shocked and in tears.

I will never take someone's word that these things don't happen any longer unless I can verify it myself. Kind if like saying abuse no longer happens in the show ring - it does - just people got more quiet about it.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

carshon said:


> I don't believe the TB foal issue is a load of BS. It is just a shadow industry that not everyone may know about. Rita Crundwell lived not far from me and I used to go to her production sales. there was a pen full of nurse mares and or surrogate mares with gorgeous foals at their sides. The mares were in horrible horrible shape. Feet needed trimmed - un kept looking etc. I ended up talking to a guy that worked there when I got caught in the "restricted" area where they were pastured and he told me they bring them in every year and dump them every year. I am sure other big name breeders at the sale know how this is done but I was shocked and in tears.
> 
> I will never take someone's word that these things don't happen any longer unless I can verify it myself. Kind if like saying abuse no longer happens in the show ring - it does - just people got more quiet about it.




She had QH's, that breed isn't lumped in the "secret shame of the TB racing industry". Not once.

It isn't a shadow industry, what it is, is a huge moneymaker for the "rescues of poor orphan foals"...LCC in 2013 took in over 250K in donations.

The "rescues" tout numbers of anywhere from 20K annually to 50K annually, all TB foals...all ripped from their dams so dams can go back to racing, or be shipped to breed back. Funny how that works, when annual registration for TB foals hovers slightly above 20K each year. Guessing the JC must register each foal 2.5 times?

Some nursemare farms have ONE mare they can loan out. Some may have 100, but it is not routine for TB foals to be taken from their mothers and put on nursemares, not by a long shot. 

Mares are shipped in foal to layover farms and they foal out there, in state where stallion stands that mare is going to be bred to, depending on farm, foal may or may not make trip to breeding shed with mare, or may stay at farm while mare is being bred. This is an operation run like clockwork, you aren't talking about a trip to Paris, and magical moments under the stars before breeding mare to stallion. The stallion stations are on a schedule and follow it.

And when mare is pronounced in foal? She and her foal are shipped back home. I know, I worked in this industry for 8 years.

I have also seen "rescues" claim that both TB foals AND nursemare foals are ripped away before they can even drink colostrum, which is a bald faced lie on both parts. You can't get a mare to another area without all of the colostrum dripping out and by time mare is hauled in, TB foal would be sick.

These place prey on people who know nothing about TBs save for the Triple Crown on TV each year, but who get all up in arms about this, and send money.

The foals that they post as "poor orphans" more than likely come from people breeding for foals to dump into this moneymaker.

But it is a scam, and recently, LCC has lumped STBs in with this as well.

But liars are all they are.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

Rain Shadow said:


> Its a load of BS. I have friends in the TB industry and they said they know of 12, yes 12 nurse mares nationwide that they could contact if they needed a mare to nurse a foal.


Exactly. All of those rescues screaming about the nursemare foals, are nothing but scammers.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

4horses said:


> Does anyone know what is going on with the Premarin foals? I know Premarin foals were very popular at one point and everyone was rescuing them. Haven't heard anything the last few years.
> 
> I've heard several things:
> 
> ...




Road to Hades is paved with good intentions.

When they kept protesting against PMU farms here in US/Canada? Pfizer shipped it to China...and China is using those foals in the horsemeat sold to European, which explains why China was on board with European market closing to US horses in 2013. Wondered at time about that, China is not known for concern over safety on any front.

Felt like they were raising horses strictly for meat, didn't know they had the PMU foals then.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Golden, did you know that it was Saskatchewan's head of the dept of Agriculture until abut 1949, Grant MacEwan, who imported fine Belgian stallions to be loaned to ranchers to upgrade the foal crops. There was a time when the foals were killed as soon as they were born, a behavior he abhorred.


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## Sherian (Aug 28, 2012)

As far as I know there is a handful of PMU farms left in Manitoba all of which produce quality stock in no need of rescuing. 
With the drug protocol for bringing a open mare into lactation being firmly established I would think the farms would go that way first and not have the hassle of shipping in a random mare. The one nurse mare source I knew of in Ontario years ago was a clyde breeder - the mares would raise their own foal to weaning and still be producing enough milk even in late lactation to feed a tb (if you ever wanted to develope horse milk as a dairy product go with clydes)


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

That pic looks like it's from when color film was first invented.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

Sherian said:


> As far as I know there is a handful of PMU farms left in Manitoba all of which produce quality stock in no need of rescuing.
> With the drug protocol for bringing a open mare into lactation being firmly established I would think the farms would go that way first and not have the hassle of shipping in a random mare. The one nurse mare source I knew of in Ontario years ago was a clyde breeder - the mares would raise their own foal to weaning and still be producing enough milk even in late lactation to feed a tb (if you ever wanted to develope horse milk as a dairy product go with clydes)


Last time I looked, there were 20 or so, but phasing those out too.

But still see this rescues all over touting they are "Saving PMU foals and nursemare foals" and bilking people out of money.

When you hit them up about the PMU claims...they change to "oh that was some time ago" but they still haven't changed their tune on it, as they are counting on OHW people who know nothing about the industry.


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

Golden Horse said:


> The industry has shrunk, and the remaining farms breed their mares to quality studs, lots of nice foals coming along.
> 
> Even in the bad old days not all foals were 'by products' my own Awesome Mr Gibbs was born on the line



They were ALL by products, as the primary product was that hormone in the urine, and foals were produced according to urine quota, not by their demand.

However, many PMU ranchers were also horsemen, before they got into the PMU business, and the garenteed income from the PMU contract, allowed them to pursue their horse interests , as sideline.
They thus bought some well bred registered stallions and even mares, to use
The one I knew very well, and from whom we bought several foals was into Appaloosa racing He also roped and ran games.
He thus bought some stallions that were direct sons of champion ApHC running horses
He, like many PMU ranchers, would have a colt sale every fall, with the better colts put into that sale, and the culls going into a meat pen, where meat buyer feed lot operators would bid a flat fee on
When new research indicated that HRT, besides having a breast cancer risk, also did not in fact, protect the heart, as previously thought, the demand for that hormone went way down
Thus, many PMU ranchers were given buy out packages from the drug company, as their quotas were cancelled.
There thus was a period where all those mares were dumped onto the market, and not just the foals
The buy out package was very good, with the PMU rancher being paid full qouta for ayear after they had no mares on line, and compensated fro feed for ayear, yet many just pocketed those feed compensation monies and dumped those horpses onto the market, with the sad tale they could not feed them


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