ridecamp@endurance.net: Premarin Production

Premarin Production

redwing2@ix.netcom.com
Thu, 21 Aug 1997 09:55:25 -0700 (PDT)

Dear Friends,
Sitting on my lap, as I write this to you, is a statistical history of the PMU farms from 1951 to 1994. This report was produced by the Manitoba (Canada) Department of Agriculture and NOT a construct of any animal rights groups. The report dhronicles the use of mares in the production of Premarin and what was done to with the resulting "by-products" (a common industry word for foals). The report reads as follows for the year 1994. "In 1993-1994, 282 farms supplied pregnant mares' urine from 27,501 mares for a gross value of $44,012,800.00. The PMU industry in Manitoba (Canada) also produced close to 27,000 foals, some of which were used as replacement stock, some sold as pleasure animals and the remainder, aproximately 17,800 animals, were sold to feed lots (to increase weight for slaughter). In the province exported about 2,700 horses to the U.S., 3,100 to Ontario and about 12,000 to Alberta for slaughter. The value of slaughter horse sales in 1994 was estimated at $8.!
!
!
5 million."
This was the statistics for only one year. This has been going on since the late forties and early fifties. When I added up all of the statistical data from 1951 to present, I was stunned at the amount of foals that had been sent to slaughter. Still, there is nothing like the real thing in terms of data, so we at Redwings went to Manitoba, Canada last year to see for ourselves.
The foal sales take place the first two weeks in September of each year. At each sale we went to (and there were many) all we saw were pen after pen filled with foals, babies as far as the eye could see (we have photos we took). There were thousands of babies as young as four months old jammed into holding pens. Each of them had been recently removed from their mothers and many were desperately trying to suck on each other for comfort.
The foals were not being offered to individual homes or buyers. They were herded in lots of 12 to 20 into the sale ring, which was a huge scale that read their combined and average weight. They were then bid on by slaughter hiouse and feed lot buyers. We were able to get four foals, two of which were purebred Belgians, by going directly to the farm sellers and asking that they put the ones we wanted into the sale ring individually.
Although we were quite used to going to slaughter sales, nothing could have prepared us for the emotional toll of seeing so many babies. Lokking into the pens and the faces of so many babies was an experience we do not want to repeat.
The four that we purchased at the sales are now healthy and happy at Redwings. Unfortunately, all of their friends in the sale pens are now dead. And this we know, not from some theory put out by "wacko" animal rights people, or the so called exaggerated stories to sell newspapers. This we know because of the report put out by the Manitoba Department of Agriculture. And this we know because of direct quotes and information from buyers, sellers and feed lot owners. The Foals (babies) are going to slaughter. Not some of them. Not a few of them. But most of them. Some of the foals are immediatley loaded into trucks where the doors are sealed (in order to avoid an expensive health certificate at the border)and shipped to the U.S. with out food or water where they arrive 48+ hours later at a slaughter house. If you stand next to one of the sealed trucks you can hear the foals as they bump around in the dark calling for thier mothers.
While we can argue for eons of time about the way the mares are treated and the eventually subjective conclusions coming from both sides of the issue, it is harder to argue with the cold hard facts of the PMU by-products, the foals. We can make life easier for the mares. But what do we all have to say about the babies? How do we make their lives easier when they are, from conception, deemed disposable?
This is part of our modern world that we do not like to face. The mare issue can be talked around. The fate of the foals however is a bit harder to justify. The only world they know is the one we ,as humans, create for them. What do we want that world to be and look like? There are many options. But, in our mind the inside of a truck without basic needs being met is not one of them. Nor is violating the natural bond of mother and child in order to produce a small pill.
These are the "realities" that convinced me to leave a high-paying professional career to go work for a small non-profit organization. I came to the conclusion, as a woman, that the foals are payinf too high of a price for my relief from menopausal symptoms. And no drug company is going to use one of thprecious life-passages of my womanhood to reap billions (yes billions) of dollars in profit.
Those of us who work at Redwings Horse Sanctuary believe that as women are educated about how Premarin is produced, and that there are alternatives available, they will no longer support this senseless industry by asking their doctors to prescribe something other than Premarin. Interestingly, this is one industry that women can have total control over. The whole Premarin market is women. Right now 8 million of women take Premarin. And as baby-boomers mature, that number will dramatically increase along with drug company profits. Every woman that has seen our four foals and looked at the photos we took at the sales, have all switched to synthetic hormones. We hope many of you will do so also.
Respectfully,
Barbara Clarke
Organizational Director
Redwings Horse Sanctuary

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