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Hundreds of Horses in Need of Immediate Adoption

Many people have unknowingly used medications produced from the urine of a pregnant mare.

While the drug Premarin was popularly used to counteract the effects of menopause, its use has significantly declined. With that decline, hundreds of horses – mares and foals – are now on the brink of slaughter.

Thousands of foals have been produced through PMU (Pregnant Mare Urine) farms, primarily in Western Canada and the North-Western USA. The mares on the production line stand in rows similar to those at dairy farms, peeing into a tube until their usefulness ends. The surplus foals are taken to auction with most ending their young lives at a slaughter plant.

For Californian horse lovers, Jennifer Johns and Cheryl Forbes, these numbers did not look good. In 1999 they began horse shopping, outbidding the knacker and later finding suitable homes for their foals. By 2002 the Animali Farm for PMU rescue was awarded non profit status – but had it come too late.

The market for Premarin had – you could say – “crashed” and what had once been an industry of 400 ranches and some 60,000 mares rapidly decreased to a mere 60 farms. For the horses, this was not a good turn.

Animali Farms no longer had the responsibility of finding homes for hundreds of foals but now thousands of mares as well, as ranchers began to reduce their horse numbers.

Animali was able to convince a number of ranchers to wait, giving Animali time to place as many horses as possible. But ranchers aren’t waiting any longer. They need the horses off their farms and Animali does not have the room or funding to pasture more than a few at a time. Meaning hundreds of horses will go to auction – to be bid on by meat buyers – if they do not find homes before October ends.

The horses and foals that come from PMU farms are commonly of draft type, draft crosses, or appaloosa, or quarter horse, although other breeds or crosses are not uncommon. To help encourage resale, many farmers have used quality stallions in their program to produce desirable foals for resale.

The horses offered through Animali Farms are offered at reasonable adoption fees which include their Coggins and transportation of up to 2000 miles from the rancher’s farm to a central drop site.

While many of the horses are only halter broke, with sufficient training the horses leaving the PMU industry can make wonderful partners. They need adoption now. Not in six months. Not in two years. There are so many great prospects available through Animali, but their time has run short – For too many of them, this will be their last month.

Please see www.theanimalifarm.com. You can never do a kinder act for a horse than adopt.

 

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