These types of posts keep popping up on my FB, mostly due to a few friends that repost them.
Just curious how factual the reporting (from their perspective) is?
I remember reading a bit about nurse mares & it wasn’t all gloom & doom…
If they have skewed the facts to fit their needs(the rescue’s) are there links, articles, etc that tell the real facts, that I can show these friends.
They(my friends, NOT the rescues) tend to be gullible bleeding hearts, even though their intentions are good.
If you do a search you will see a couple of long discussions about this subject and the lies that LCC are spreading to win the support of donations.
All I can say is we have 8 mares at one of the most prominent racing/breeding operations in Lexington Ky and for the past 7 years every mare has nursed their own foal till weaning. Three mares here in California, same thing, no nurse mares for their foals…
That is what I thought, but I tried doing a search & didn’t come up with actual links or articles to pass on.
I’ll keep searching 
Yes, some foals are raised by nurse mares. No, they are not raised by a nurse mare so their dam can be rebred.
Can I just say how much I dislike the manner in which Last Chance Corral conducts themselves online? And shame on whatever farm dumps their nurse mare foals on them.
I grew up very close to a nurse mare farm and have been working with nurse mares and their foals since I was a teenager. The farm I knew never went for theatrics. They never made up lies, or allowed people to make up lies about the industry on their behalf. They never spoke poorly of their clients. What they did do was manage a band of reliable nurse mares and adopt/sell well-raised foals to local folks.
The thoroughbred industry is not the only one that utilizes nurse mares. I’ve also never known any farm of any breed that pulls all of their foals so that the mares can be bred. Nurse mares are generally used when:
a) The mare dies during delivery or is very ill after delivery (most common)
b) the foal is hospitalized or confined for an extended period of time after delivery, so instead of stressing mom, a nurse mare is introduced at a later point
c) the mare has a chronic issue that prevents her from raising a foal in a healthy manner
d) the mare has a behavioral issue or rejects the foal
Also, it’s not necessarily a matter of one foal is more valuable than the other. It’s hard to raise an orphan bucket baby and not screw up the horse up for life. The nurse mare farm that I worked with were pros-- you would never know their foals were orphans. They were appropriately socialized both with other horses and humans. Very few breeding farms have the around-the-clock man power or the socialization opportunities to properly raise a bucket baby.
When I visited a very large and prominent farm in Kentucky, the girl who did my tour took me around and showed me lots of different stuff. At one point, we drove by a pasture with several draft mares who were out with their foals. The girl said they were the nurse mares, but they didn’t need to use any of them that year.
You would think the fact that Zenyatta, the most recognizable broodmare raised all of her own foals would be enough to convince people it doesn’t happen just because. Don’t ever let facts get in the way of a propaganda fest that might lead to donations however.
I could not help but think, “Oh No Not this again”!
As previously posted they are skimming the truth.
I’m surprised that none of the breeders have gone after any of these rescues for slander. Considering their lies are not painting a pretty picture for the industry as if the industry needs another black eye due to lies.
Yes there are nurse mares , yes breeding farms use them , yes there are those out there who have mares bred for the purpose of producing nurse mares. Yes some large operations have and breed their own nurse mares for the purpose. ?Usually bred to decent stallions so the resultant foal has the prospect of a decent life.
No they are not used so that racing barns can rebreed their mares , No the nurse mares do not have their foals pulled routinely so they are ready on a whim to be shipped as a nurse mare . IF not needed as such they nurse their own foals until weaning time.
Nurse mares are used when and if a mare for whatever reason cannot nurse her own foal either through rejection, severe illness , injury or death. The need to use a nurse mare would be any decent breeders worst nightmare.
LCC does good work … but some of their Hype just makes me see red.
The nurse mare part is true. It has NOTHING to do with AI. That “disassociation with the truth” makes absolutely no sense. One has nothing to do with the other.
The farms I knew let their “teasers” breed the nurse mares — a treat for them and it kept their libidos from getting discouraged.
Before you go all wacko on this issue, did you ever think how cows produce the milk you drink? That milk doesn’t arrive out of the blue. Cows are bred every year. Cows have to be baby machines so they will continue to give us something to put on our breakfast cereal. The calves usually spend 3 days with their mother before they are whisked away (to where?) so they do not suck up all that good milk that people will buy.
OP, if you are appalled at the fate of nurse mare foals (and many/most of them find good homes – the idea of wholesale dumping them at auctions is hyperbole at its finest), then stop drinking milk, cooking with milk, using any product with milk in it.
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Not only spreading lies and back peddling, but some of the info given out on how to raise foals is a bit hair raising. Who are these people?
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8134188]
The nurse mare part is true. It has NOTHING to do with AI. That “disassociation with the truth” makes absolutely no sense. One has nothing to do with the other.
The farms I knew let their “teasers” breed the nurse mares — a treat for them and it kept their libidos from getting discouraged.
Before you go all wacko on this issue, did you ever think how cows produce the milk you drink? That milk doesn’t arrive out of the blue. Cows are bred every year. Cows have to be baby machines so they will continue to give us something to put on our breakfast cereal. The calves usually spend 3 days with their mother before they are whisked away (to where?) so they do not suck up all that good milk that people will buy.
OP, if you are appalled at the fate of nurse mare foals (and many/most of them find good homes – the idea of wholesale dumping them at auctions is hyperbole at its finest), then stop drinking milk, cooking with milk, using any product with milk in it.[/QUOTE]
As someone who grew up next door to a very large scale dairy farm, I can’t help but clarify where the calves are “whisked away” to. They are taken to live in a group of about ten other calves and either be bucket/bottle fed or put with a nurse cow. They live there until they are ready to be weaned then they are generally sold to be put out on pasture for a time before going to be butchered for meat. Not a horrible life really and none of them are whisked away and killed immediately after birth.
Back on topic: the entire nurse mare horror story is so poorly thought out, I can’t imagine how stupid a person has to be to believe it. If it’s “all about the money” then why would farms opt for using nurse mares just for the heck of it? There is nothing economical about switching a foal from it’s real mother to a nurse mare.
And what a lot of these “rescues” forget in al their slanderous PR, is that mares can be induced with drugs into lactating as well. Yes, nurse mares exist, and they are sometimes needed. But they are so pricey that your average small breeder probably couldn’t afford them. I have two mares that if we ever needed to, could be brought into milk chemically to raise babies. They both had multiple foals and are excellent moms and the one we know would raise an orphan, the other is so gentle she most likely would with a little coaxing.
Most breeders do everything in their power to not need a nursemare, much less do it on a whim like the “rescues” imply.
[QUOTE=Angelico;8134288]
Back on topic: the entire nurse mare horror story is so poorly thought out, I can’t imagine how stupid a person has to be to believe it. If it’s “all about the money” then why would farms opt for using nurse mares just for the heck of it? There is nothing economical about switching a foal from it’s real mother to a nurse mare.[/QUOTE]
It is not so much stupidity but emotion that causes people to believe the drama passed around by the rescue looking to get donations.
For the most part, to little dog-house type setups where they have a little pen and a shed. They’re bottle- and then bucket fed. Females become more milk cows, most of the males become feeder steers as you don’t need tons of males.
One of our group’s horses was actually shipped to Florida when he was a week old because he dam was being sent from Ontario to be bred to a FL stallion, so…he went with her. Since most mares don’t go nearly that far I cannot imagine where people get this “They have to take the foals away to breed them!” stuff if they’re not deliberately, maliciously making up lies.
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8134188]
The nurse mare part is true. It has NOTHING to do with AI. That “disassociation with the truth” makes absolutely no sense. One has nothing to do with the other.
The farms I knew let their “teasers” breed the nurse mares — a treat for them and it kept their libidos from getting discouraged.
Before you go all wacko on this issue, did you ever think how cows produce the milk you drink? That milk doesn’t arrive out of the blue. Cows are bred every year. Cows have to be baby machines so they will continue to give us something to put on our breakfast cereal. The calves usually spend 3 days with their mother before they are whisked away (to where?) so they do not suck up all that good milk that people will buy.
OP, if you are appalled at the fate of nurse mare foals (and many/most of them find good homes – the idea of wholesale dumping them at auctions is hyperbole at its finest), then stop drinking milk, cooking with milk, using any product with milk in it.[/QUOTE]
WTF? Did you even READ my post? I never said I was appalled by anything.
I was simply asking for factual based references that I could pass on to others that tend to blindly believe any sob story they’re given.
For those that actually posted helpful responses Thank You!
I’ll only give my own personal experience. I “rescued” a Belgian draft mare here in California who was being sold for less than meat price. She was older, and a wonderful mother, and through a friend’s connections, was able to place her at one of the very best TB farms in Kentucky. Hopefully to be a nurse mare.
As luck would have it, the year in her life when she landed in horsey Nirvana was also the year she decided not to get in foal anymore. Lucky for her, the staff at the TB farm had already fallen in love with her largeness and her gentle nature. She lives there, not as a nurse mare but as a nanny, every year she gets her flock of weanlings to shepherd about. I’ve seen pictures, in her care are the children of racing royalty and she takes very good care of them. She is so adored that when she scratched her eye, she was hustled over to one of those well known Kentucky horsespitals to have it tended to.
That farm BTW, does have nurse mares, and their foals are not dumped but raised on farm and generally quite desired as riding prospects, since both their nurse mares and the stallions they are put to are of decent quality. That’s my experience.
Did anyone notice that anyone who commented with the truth their comments were erased and those who spoke the truth are blocked from making comments?
