10th blog

I have experienced the sadness of the nurse mare industry first hand while living in Lexington, KY. There I worked at a well known equine hospital, a large thoroughbred operation and several thoroughbred auctions. I have helped other rescues and myself have rescued nurse mare foals and other equines since 2000.   Nurse mare foals are born to mothers that are bred solely for milk production. Mares of different breeds but many times larger breeds such as drafts are bred by nurse mare farmers. After foaling, the mares are leased to a farm, typically a farm involved with the various race industries. They become a mother for a more “expensive” foal. Their biological foals were historically left to die, killed or were slaughter bound. Have you heard of pony leather or pony skin? Foals are also skinned and their hides used for high end leather products. Many times, during the time the mare is leased, the “expensive foals” farm is required to get the mare back in foal. This is why the foals usually are mixed breeds and unable to be registered, because they will breed back to whatever is available, even the teaser stallion horses or ponies. So the nurse mare farmers make a profit on leasing the mare and then also get the bare bred back for free which in turn brings him the same money next year. Many of the nurse mares I have seen were not properly cared for. They rarely saw a farrier, had unkept coats and were underweight. Some of the farmers attempted to care for the nurse mare foals. Their conditions were not any better. At one farm I picked up a 6 week old foal that was locked up by himself in a dark stall with manure a foot deep and a bucket of human milk that he filled up once every 24 hours. There was no water and the foal had a fungal infection and hair loss. A couple other foals were acquired at auctions. An auction is no place for a couple day old foal to be. Some of these were vibrant and others were near death. Of course, not all nurse mare farms are like this. There are some that raise purebred registered foals that are well taken care of along with the mares, but these are few and far between because this is indeed an industry. These horses are not pets, they are material objects as are most of the racing industry. There are many reasons for the leasing of nurse mares but the most popular is because the thoroughbred must be bred back shortly after her foal is born and cannot be artificially inseminated. They must be bred live cover. For insurance and other reasons, foals are not allowed to go to the breeding shed. This is when a nurse mare comes in to take over. Other reasons include; mares not accepting foals or the mares may die during or after delivery. Keep in mind horses in the race industry are bred very young, very old, when they are lame, etc. It is all about money, not the welfare of the horse. You wouldn’t think that there would be the need for that many nurse mares but think about the thousands upon thousands of mares that are bred just for the race industries every year. Then think about the thousands of nurse mares that need to support them. Then there is the foaling year after year after year of all these unwanted foals. Some nurse mare farms produce 50-100 foals per year. There are hundreds of these farms out there. Over the last couple of years, awareness of this industry has increased and there are more rescues than ever devoted to these helpless foals but this is not enough. Overbreeding of all horses in general has become an issue recently. With the closing of all of the slaughter plants in the US, we are about to see more abuse and neglect than ever before. Horse rescues alone cannot support all of the nurse mare foals not to mention the pmu foals, retired racers, those that never made it in the race industry and all of the poor quality horses bred by backyard breeders trying to make a quick buck. The worst part of this industry is that nothing is government regulated. The pmu industry is regulated by the government but that is not to say things are done properly there either. They at least have policies and guidelines in effect and inspections. So please when you think about buying or breeding a horse, ADOPT. Don’t breed, don’t support or buy from breeders, RESCUE! There are so many different colors, types and breeds available. There is sure to be one for you. Not to mention the joys and bonds of raising an orphan foal. They are the best horses I have ever owned and the easiest to train because they are so willing to please. I have not experienced any socialization issues with mine that many claim orphans have. Though proper training is key. Listed below are websites of other nurse mare foal rescues many that have foals available year round. Some only have foals available in the spring. Please contact me or one of these rescues to adopt or to help in any way. Also please read about the pmu foals. Terri Stemper Dream Equine Therapy Center This is yet another explanation of the Nurse Mare industry and I hope that the message will spread.  This being my last blog I’d like to leave with a message of hope.  There is an old story about a man on a beach who surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish that were washed up on the beach and dying.  He went a long the beach and threw the starfish back in the ocean, one by one.  Another man walked by and told him there was no hope, there were too many of them and he was not making a difference.  The man threw another starfish into the ocean and said, “I made the difference to that one.”  This story is a story of hope.  Though not every foal can be saved, a lot of them can.  And if this seems overwhelming, it should because it is.  But every foal that is saved is a precious soul that is given a chance to live.  For my foal that I adopted I gave her the chance to prove herself to the world.  She won the Barrel Race at the Ohio State fair this past year.  She was worth saving not because she won but because she is my best friend.  Every foal should have a chance to create a bond with a human.  We can make a difference….one starfish at a time.

Click here for more information about PMU (Pregnant Mares Urine)…   \\ Please call and make an appointment to visit us.

9th blog

Nurse mare orphaned foals. These foals are from the Nurse Mare farm that we purchased in May at a few days old and are now available. These foals are very lucky to be alive. They came in with Salmonella and still have it but it is improving. We have 70+ other horses here and not one has gotten it so it isn’t as contagious as was once thought. We were very careful of exposure, especially at first and washed everything, bleached, sterilized and all. We have volunteers who come out and feed them, walk them around, bath them and play with them. The volunteers carry the germs with them, on their shoes, clothing and expose other horses and still NO salmonella ever bothered another horse. The foals are now six months old. Pictures are posted. They are sweethearts. One is a Tennessee Walker, bay colt. He injured his eye but is going to be a great horse, he is fearless and curious. The chestnut filly with flaxen mane is very feminine, the Thoroughbred colt is fast and athletic. The gray and white draft cross filly was the sickest. She was skin and bones. The vet said she wouldn’t make it through the night but we worked with her, gave her a vitamin/mineral boost every few hours, fed her every hours and stayed with her and gave her hope. That was almost two months ago, she is doing great and has been adopted! These foals were headed for death to be skinned. They are all very people oriented and handled. We pay $250 (not including gas and time plus six months of stalls, and just regular care) for them and would ask for a donation of $250 each. This will allow us to obtain more orphaned foals and save them. We have at least $1000 into each foal with all the medications, hospital and vet care. Yes, we are here to help horses. We do not profit from these helpless souls. We speak for them, we protect them, we care and love them. What does it cost to sponsor a foal? We have eight foals waiting for us to pick them up at the Nurse Mare farm. They don’t know why they are orphaned. They don’t know where their mothers are. They don’t know kindness and love of people. We think they deserve a chance and with each $250 donation we can save one. This isn’t a “we have to have the money by next week or they’ll go to slaughter threat”. This is just the truth. We’ve been dealing with these farms for a few years, we know first hand what’s going on. If you have $25 to donate for a foal, then maybe your office workers can all pitch in as a group effort. How about your friends, family, classmates? Together you can save a foal. Have a car wash, garage sale, sell items on eBay. There is always a supply of foals in need. You took the time to read this, you care. Please take the time to help. Thank you all. They need all of our efforts. Right Photo is one of the foals we hopelessly tried to save. He was fighting for his life, his breath and we could not save him. Look at the precious innocent baby. He never had a chance to know we cared and how we desperately wanted him to live

This post describes the daily life in a rescue organization.  The foals were rescued from the slaughter house but they caught salmonella.  After they conquered salmonella, one still died.  No matter what they did for him they could not undo the sin that had already taken place when he was taken from his mother.  The rescuers can not dwell on this little guy because tomorrow there will be more foals in need of a savior.

8th blog

 

This video shows the foals that were rescued, as well as those who were not.  I encourage everyone to contact these organizations to help these foals.  Even if you are unable to adopt these rescuers need money, bedding, hay, and many other supplies to help these foals survive.

7th blog

Much the same as PMU farms where mares are kept pregnant for the high hormore content of their urine during pregnancy for use in hormore replacement therapy, where the babies thusly produced are unwanted / disposable by-products, Nurse Mare Farms keep their mares pregant for the colostrum-Rich mothers milk for use on foals other than their own. The unwanted babies are byproducts deprived of their much need first taste of colostrum rich mother milk, and are usually immediately killed and discarded “or otherwise” disposed of. See Vid:

 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/253770/horse_slaughter_and_nurse_mare_foals/

The colostrum-rich first milk of the mother is reserved for the “better,” more important foals the industry deems  ”more worthy” of attention.  The colostrum is “banked” or the mares are used as surrogate mothers for the ”privlidged foals”  whos mothers cant be with them because they are being bred back right away or need to continue on in her career and not have to be burdned with the raising of a baby. Someone astutely observed that the whole nasty business could be avoided if the Jockey Club would just make a rule that the baby horses stay with their moms until weaned, as it should be! Such a rule would help cut down on over-breeding too! So ah,….we think this is definately a subject that needs more exploration & exposure, as seems there are some simple solitions to this problem of “needing to kill” baby horses, but here is some info which you can use for a start. Hoping we can all contribute here and learn together on this subject at hand, in hopes of “seperating the wheat from the chaffe” in acertaining the good guys from the bad in the busniess of producing unwanted babies, and also as to those compassionate souls who are trying to save them, well, at least some of them, anyway. But Friends of Equines is  about saving them all. . Who of these “NurseMare Farms” producing so many unwanted babies is willing to work with the rescues,  and who is not,… and if not, why not? And if so, how far are they willing to go to to help us save all the babies?  These things we must know.

. If you have any information on this very touchy and highly emotional subject that you would care to share with us, either good and/or bad, we would be glad to post it here so everyone can share. Email us at:Recruit@nycap.rr.com

I think the only way to deal with this problem and stop the killing of these foals is to get the message out there.  Many people, even in the horse world, do not know about Nurse Mare Farms.  Rescue organizations should spread the awareness.  Last Chance Corral goes to the annul Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus Ohio every year to talk to people and try to raise money.  They bring a foal to Congress which I think really sends the message to people.  It is easy to hear about something horrible and frown, then go one with your life but, it is hard to look that horrible thing in the face and turn away. There should be a commercial on T.V. like the Humane Society has.  Though the rescue organizations are helping greatly, I think it is time for bigger action.

 

6th blog

Saving a Horse

There are many equestrians around the United States and in foreign countries. Some compete with their animals and some just ride for fun. However, most probably do not know about the cruelty that is happening throughout the equine industry.

A nurse mare foal, is a foal who was born so that its mother might come into milk. The milk that the nurse mare is producing is used to nourish the foal of another mare, a more “expensive” foal. Primarily these are thoroughbred foals, though certainly not limited to the thoroughbred industry. The foals are essentially byproducts of the mare’s milk industry. A thoroughbred mare’s purpose is to produce more racehorses. A mare can give birth to one foal each year provided she is re-bred immediately after delivering a foal. Because the Jockey Club requires that mares be bred only by live cover, and not artificially inseminated. The mare must travel to the stallion for breeding and may be shipped as soon as 7-10 days after giving birth to a foal, but a period of 3-4 weeks is generally allowed.

Traveling is very risky for these newborn racing foals, and insurance costs are prohibitive for the foal to accompany the mother to the stallion farm. At this point a nurse mare is hired to raise the thoroughbred foal. In order to have milk, the nurse mare had to give birth to her own baby. When she is sent to the thoroughbred breeding farm, her own foal is left behind. Historically, these foals were simply killed. Orphaned foals are difficult to raise and no one had tried to raise large numbers of them. Now, these foals do have value … their hides can be used as “pony skin” in the fashion and textile industries, and the meat is considered a delicacy in some foreign markets.
This is where a lot of rescue organizations come in. They rescue these foals by purchasing as many as they can, tend to their needs, and find them loving, secure homes. Please help us help them.

What Is Involved in Rescue?

The needs of orphan foals can be overwhelming. Even at their healthy best, they need lots of milk, nutritional support, and daily hands-on care until they are adopted into their new homes, when their new families take on these responsibilities.

Some healthy foals are quickly taken into their new homes, but many stay with us for longer periods of time, struggling to survive.

Foals in severely compromised heath have advanced needs that can exceed $75 to $100 a day per foal in veterinary and intensive care. Once a foal is in in stable health, these costs decrease dramatically, and are readily manageable by their new surrogate families (caring for one or two is a breeze compared to eight or twelve!).

So, if you are an equestrian, love horses, and would like to rescue a baby in need, look in your area for nurse mare foal rescue organizations. Saving a life of these wonderful animals can be very rewarding. Regardless of your interests, whether it be barrel racing, hunter jumper, dressage, trail riding, competition trail riding, rodeo, calf roping, western pleasure, anything that involves the majestic horse…save a life, and adopt a nurse mare foal for your next champion.

(http://ezinearticles.com/?Saving-Horses&id=292713)

Again and again I read that the racehorse mare’s foal can not travel to the stallion farm due to insurance costs.  How much trouble can the foal be?  And they are worried about its health for traveling?????  This just shows how much breeding and having the right bloodline keeps foals safe.  The nurse mare’s foal has to travel HOURS to a rescue place when they are only a few days old and only after being stripped from their mother.  Another thing I would like to bring to the attention of the public is that these foals are not just something to be thrown away.  They are still horses with personalities and endless possibilities.  Bloodlines are not everything!  If someone works with one of these foals they could be great at various sports.  Plus, since you got them at such a young age, the bond between you and the foal would be strong.  Why throw away something that change your life?

5th blog

What are Nurse Mare Foals? A nurse mare foal is a foal who was born so that its mother might come into milk. The milk that the nurse mare is producing is used to nourish the foal of another mare, a more “expensive” foal. Primarily these are thoroughbred foals, though certainly not limited to the thoroughbred industry. The foals are essentially byproducts of the mare’s milk industry. A thoroughbred mare’s purpose is to produce more racehorses. A mare can give birth to one foal each year provided she is re-bred immediately after delivering a foal. Because the Jockey Club requires that mares be bred only by live cover, and not artificially inseminated. The mare must travel to the stallion for breeding and may be shipped as soon as 7-10 days after giving birth to a foal, but a period of 3-4 weeks is generally allowed. In general there are a number of reasons why a nurse mare may be called upon, among these are: loss of maternal mare, mare has no milk, mare rejects foal, and countless other malandy’s. As far as the Thoroughbred breeding industry goes there are also numerous reasons a nurse mare might be needed, these include: travelling and insurance costs which prohibit the foal from accompaning the Thoroughbred mare to the stallion station, and this is just to name a couple out of many other concerns. Traveling is very risky for these newborn racing foals, and insurance costs are prohibitive for the foal to accompany the mother to the stallion farm. At this point a nurse mare is hired to raise the thoroughbred foal. In order to have milk, the nurse mare had to give birth to her own baby. When she is sent to the thoroughbred breeding farm, her own foal is left behind. Historically, these foals were simply killed. Orphaned foals are difficult to rise and no one had tried to raise large numbers of them. Now, these foals do have value … their hides can be used as “pony skin” in the fashion and textile industries, and the meat is considered a delicacy in some foreign markets. This is where Last Chance Corral comes in. We rescue these foals by purchasing as many as we can, tend to their needs, and find them loving, secure homes. Please help us help them. Please note that we have to purchase our Nurse Mare Foals. Each foal costs us between $200 and $400. The adoption fee of each foal is based on what we pay for each individual foal. We add an extra $50 to the price we pay to try, and I emphasize the word try, to help cover the expenses of transportation, milk, and medications. What Is Involved in Rescue? The needs of orphan foals can be overwhelming. Even at their healthy best, they need lots of milk, nutritional support, and daily hands-on care until they are adopted into their new homes, when their new families take on these responsibilities. Some healthy foals are quickly taken into their new homes, but many stay with us for longer periods of time, struggling to survive. For these, we have finally managed to build an Intensive Care Barn, where the foals can have much closer, warmer, constant supervision and care. Foals in severely compromised health have advanced needs that can exceed $75 to $100 a day per foal in veterinary and intensive care. Once a foal is in in stable health, these costs decrease dramatically, and are readily manageable by their new surrogate families (caring for one or two is a breeze compared to eight or twelve!). During most of foal season, we have 4 to 10 foals in residence. Typically, LCC’s daily foal related expenses average well over $200 a day, inclusive of milk, staff assistance (We need to have clean stalls, bleached buckets, and clean baby behinds!), as well as other nutritional and veterinary support. Needless to say, it can be extremely hard to stay afloat. There have been times we have had to decline foals for a few days until we have the finances to purchase, transport and care for them. All of us hope and pray that this problem can become a thing of the past, if we all work together. We can’t do it without you! Open your heart, open your wallet or open your barn doors and welcome in a bundle of joy.

(http://www.lastchancecorral.org/foal-rescue)

It was from Last Chance Corral that I adopted my foal three years ago.  She was taken away from her mom the DAY she was born!  Last Chance Corral truly strives to save as many foals as possible.  I went with them to a Nurse Mare Farm once and was heartbroken when, after an hour of debate, we had to leave three foals behind because the owners refused to let take them due to the fact that we did not have enough money for them.  I had to pay extra for my foal because she was a paint and people would have paid more for her coat than other “plain” color foals.

4th blog

A mission to save orphaned foals

Culpeper woman leads effort to save abandoned nurse-mare foals

See related video
By MARCIA CHIDESTER

Date published: 4/23/2009

FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Motherless at 21/2 weeks old and facing a probable death sentence, BK is the horse industry’s dirty little secret.

So are Brunhilda, Magnifico and the five other nurse-mare foals that Annie Delp salvaged last week from a farm in Kentucky.

“They are beautiful animals being thrown out,” said Delp, owner of Eagle Hill Equine Rescue in Culpeper County.

A nurse-mare foal is conceived solely to generate its mother’s milk production, which is an essential component of her life as a surrogate.

The demand for nurse mares is heaviest in the thoroughbred industry, where expensive, pedigreed newborns are often prohibited from traveling with their mothers when they are sent to distant farms for future breeding.

When the call comes for the nurse-mare to become a surrogate, her own foal’s usefulness is over.

“The majority of these foals will be left to die, or the farm owners shoot and bury them,” Delp said.

Even though the industry has existed for decades, there are no statistics on how many nurse-mare foals die in the United States.

“It is as hush-hush a topic as abortion clinics were back in the 1960s,” Delp said.

Delp puts the number somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, and says Kentucky, New York and Tennessee are hotbeds for this activity.

But not all nurse-mare foals are in danger, said Jorg Huckabee-Mayfield, founder of White Horse Appaloosa Rescue in Burkeville.

“Some farm owners sell the babies directly to the public,” Huckabee-Mayfield said.

Others take good care of the foals until rescuers show up to haul them away, she said.

Crusader to the rescue

(http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/042009/04232009/461027)

First of all, even if the owners of these farms take “good care” of the foals until the rescuers get there they are still creating the situation in which the foals become orphans.  The likely hood of foals living without their mother is 50/50, even if they are rescued.  Fir example: Not all slave owners whipped their slaves, but they still took part in slavery.  So does not whipping their slaves mean that they were not doing anything wrong?

3rd blog

Nurse mare foals are a byproduct of the racing and show horse industry. No, they are not the foals born into this industry; they are born to the mares that often raise these fine champions, while these foals are left without much opportunity to survive.

Expensive show and racing broodmares are bred back each year, usually during their foal heat, but due to the requirements of many registries they cannot be artificially inseminated. As a result, the mare is required to be transported to the breeding farms for a period of about 30-40 days. Due to the high value and insurance restriction associated with her newborn foal it remains at the owner’s farm and is nursed and nurtured by a surrogate nurse mare. The mares’ own foals are left without the care they need to survive and they often die or are sold to tanners where they are killed for their hides.

Recently much has been learned about this little known industry and many nurse mare farms are beginning to attempt to correct the inherent wrongs of the industry. More and more farms are placing their foals with rescue groups and others who can give the foals the care they need to grow and thrive. However, the cost in time and money can be astronomical. These foals need constant care and commitment, just as any baby does.

The AHDF supports new regulations proposed by the equine industry that would ensure that all nurse mare foals be at least 2 months old before being separated from their mother and that the industry support the rescues that take in these foals. This is an old industry, one that has remained hidden for decades, but one that needs to change NOW.

You can help protect these helpless foals by refusing to buy items made from “pony skins”. Many people do not realize that these items come from these young defenseless foals. Do not buy ropes, tail extensions or other items made from horse hair at all unless they can guarantee that the hair is gathered humanely from LIVE horses (most are not).

(http://www.whitebirdapps.com/?page_id=71)

The fact that the racehorse mare is usually sent back to the “stallion farm” only a short while after giving birth is horrible.  Though this is not the main subject of my blog I must mention my dismay at reading this.  This industry is more evil than I previously thought!  As to the cost of raising a foal, I adopted and raised a nurse mare foal three years ago and found it to be expensive, but not detrimental.  My foal did need constant attention because she was emotionally scarred from being taken from her mother.  We had to feed her through a tube for two weeks because she refused to drink out of a bucket.  It was only after I had created a bond between us (mainly running with her in the pasture) that she started eating on her own.  This shows that these foals are not merely a “byproduct” of this industry, they are the victim of greed.

11/4 2nd Post

“The colostrum-rich first milk of the mother is reserved for the “better,” more important foals the industry deems “more worthy” of attention. The colostrum is “banked” or the mares are used as surrogate mothers for the “privlidged foals” whos mothers cant be with them because they are being bred back right away or need to continue on in her career and not have to be burdned with the raising of a baby. Someone astutely observed that the whole nasty business could be avoided if the Jockey Club would just make a rule that the baby horses stay with their moms until weaned, as it should be! Such a rule would help cut down on over-breeding too!”

(http://unnecessaryevils.blogspot.com/2008/08/nurse-mare-farms-industrys-other-dirty.html)

Though the person who wrote clearly needed to spell check their writing, I he/she made a valid point.  I think the owners of the race horses do not even consider any other options.  How much money can they really lose while letting a foal stay with it’s mom until its weaned? A more important question is: Is that lost money more important than a foals life?

11/4 1st blog

My blog will be about Nurse Mare Farms. These farms “loan out” lactating mares to high-end thoroughbred owners to allow a thoroughbred foal to milk on the lactating mare.  They do this for a couple of reasons.  Either the owners want the thoroughbred mare to get pregnant right away or they want her to go back to the race track.  The tragedy in this situation is that loaned out mare’s foal is unwanted and usually killed on the spot or sold to a slaughter house.  The foal is usually taken away from it’s mom within a week.  I think this in inhumane and should be illegal.  To me the use of a nurse mare is unethical and against every moral fiber in my body.