Nurse mares

[EKLay]

Anyone have any new info on Last Chance Corral or the whole nurse mare thing? I have a relative who’s just been “alerted” to the RARA version of nurse mares, so now I’m being inundated by tons of messages, emails, and notifications from everyone who’s just learned about this asking me why I’m not upset by this horrible side of the horse industry, if I’ll donate to Last Chance Corral (absolutely not), etc.

I have publicly stated (when “tagged”) that I would never support Last Chance, but would always welcome discussing the topic of nurse mares as it’s not what that particular website presents. In response to this, I’ve gotten some truly horrendous messages from friends-of-relatives. I don’t care about or respond to those, but I would like to know if there are any helpful infographics or easy-to-understand websites that explain everything? I’d prefer to just copy and paste info when the relatives ask, so something factual and already-made would be easier for me, but if there’s nothing already out there, I’ll just take some time to make my own short response this weekend.

That aside - why in the world do people so easily believe the straight up lies told by places like this? Even a tiny modicum of research would present enough facts to disprove their drivel.

[Scribbler]

I haven’t been getting either side of the story so perhaps you can fill us in? I’ve only heard of it in passing.

[EKLay]

I first heard of Last Chance Corral a few years ago on the COTH forums. They are a “rescue” for nurse mare foals, who claim that “performance mares” are campaigned, bred, foal out, then their foals are taken away and put on nurse mares so the “performance mare” can be re-bred or go back to their performance career. This place claims that the nurse mare foals are left to starve, bashed on the head, or otherwise euthed, so they swoop in and save them.

If I remember correctly from last time, there was some question about where the “rescue” is getting these foals from and whether they were actual nurse mare foals or if they were getting them from other places just so they’d have enough to adopt out.

They adopt foals out in pairs (at a minimum) and are apparently ramping up donation requests lately as I’m getting a ton of messages from friends/relatives who have seen their videos and think that because I like horses I’d love this. However, friends-of-relatives, when I said the video was presenting false information, went completely nuts. Almost textbook RARA posts (naturally without capitalization, punctuation, grammer, or coherent writing) attacking my character, saying I clearly have no horse/animal experience, accusing me of all sorts of nasty stuff - it was so over the top it was comical.

But, since I’d prefer to at last TRY to present the actual facts before people get suckered into “donating”, I’m wading into the breach. I’m not trying to convince the RARA’s.

[Scribbler]

@EKLay

I first heard of Last Chance Corral a few years ago on the COTH forums. They are a “rescue” for nurse mare foals, who claim that “performance mares” are campaigned, bred, foal out, then their foals are taken away and put on nurse mares so the “performance mare” can be re-bred or go back to their performance career. This place claims that the nurse mare foals are left to starve, bashed on the head, or otherwise euthed, so they swoop in and save them.

If I remember correctly from last time, there was some question about where the “rescue” is getting these foals from and whether they were actual nurse mare foals or if they were getting them from other places just so they’d have enough to adopt out.

They adopt foals out in pairs (at a minimum) and are apparently ramping up donation requests lately as I’m getting a ton of messages from friends/relatives who have seen their videos and think that because I like horses I’d love this. However, friends-of-relatives, when I said the video was presenting false information, went completely nuts. Almost textbook RARA posts (naturally without capitalization, punctuation, grammer, or coherent writing) attacking my character, saying I clearly have no horse/animal experience, accusing me of all sorts of nasty stuff - it was so over the top it was comical.

But, since I’d prefer to at last TRY to present the actual facts before people get suckered into “donating”, I’m wading into the breach. I’m not trying to convince the RARA’s.

I can’t think nurse mares would be a big part of breeding performance horses these days when you can use a surrogate mare and in vitro fertilization. If you didn’t want to breed a performance mare that would make more sense than going through the whole risk of pregnancy and then taking away the newborn foal when you could wean it in a few months. I don’t think.foals should be weaned super early but recognize that in some breeds they are weaned as early as 3 months.

So where do the foals cone from? Are they throwaways at auction? Are they from pmu mares? How old are they? If they are older than 3 months they might be already weaned. Are they bottle fed?

Ok I googled this and apparently it is part of the tb industry but not for every mare. There is one mild article from the horse.com and then of course all the rescue sites.

The race horse industry doesn’t allow AI or therefore surrogate mares.

I do think people get very wound up over questions of sex and reproduction in animals and especially about motherhood.

[merrygoround]

I don’t know if this will help’. If I find more and better, I’ll post it too.
And you can Google it. there are old COTH discussions that are quite accurate.

https://ayankeeinparis.com/2015/02/2…bred-industry/

[demidq]

Some big stud farms have their own nursemares, and keep and raise the nursemare foals themselves. Many of the good nursemares (esp draftis) are quite happy to raise both the orphan and their own foals. The NMs are often bred to the teasers, presumably to keep them in a good humour! In Ireland at the National Stud, the NMs are coloured cobs, babies are kept there and sold when they are weanlings or yearlings. Foals are only put on nursemares if orphaned or mum rejects them.
I agree that performance mares have AI or invitro fertilisation, the embryo is harvested and implanted in the surrogate, sometimes 2-3 times in a breeding season if performance mare is really somerthing special. No nursemares unless surrogate mare can’t perform as mum!

[Texarkana]

Last Chance Corral :rolleyes:

Last Chance Corral is a “rescue” that places foals from nurse mares into adoptive homes. Sounds great, right? EXCEPT… they fraudulently perpetuate a web of lies about the nurse mare industry for their own gain. Lies such as, “the thoroughbred industry pulls all foals off of their biological mothers so the mares can be re-bred,” (nope), or “the thoroughbred breeders slaughter the unwanted nurse mare foals” (wrong again).

Nurse mares are used when a mare cannot raise her own foal for whatever reason-- injury, illness, foal rejection, or most commonly, death of the mare. With thoroughbreds being the highest dollar breeding industry, they tend to use nurse mares the most, because the foals can literally be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is notoriously challenging to raise an orphan without behavioral or developmental complications, and breeders do not want to jeopardize the future for such valuable animals. For that same reason, other horse breeders also utilize nurse mares, albeit to a lesser degree because nurse mares are expensive to lease.

Last Chance Corral supposedly purchases foals from nurse mare farms/owners. But then they do a piss poor job raising them. Instead of giving them the proper care and handling needed for an orphan, they market them immediately as if they were commodities, all while using them to push their own agenda. They don’t ever get “stuck” with unadoptable foals, so who knows where they go if they aren’t rehomed. Their “charity” status is not in good standing with the BBB because they won’t publicize current income and tax documents to prove their not-for-profit status.

The irony is that it is becoming commonplace to chemically induce lactation in mares, meaning that while we still need “nurse mares,” we DON’T need to breed them for lactation. The number of nurse mare foals has been steadily dropping over the past few years. You’d think LCC would be shouting for joy, no? But here they are, still pushing their lies upon the public and claiming they are overflowing with foals of dubious origins.

I worked closely with a nurse mare farm most of my life through young adulthood. The owner of the farm ran a top notch operation that supplied the mid-Atlantic with quality nurse mares and the public with well raised foals to purchase. The owner passed many years ago, long before the advent of LCC. I can only imagine what she’d have to say about LCC and their propaganda… :sigh:

[Where_sMyWhite]

@Scribbler

Ok I googled this and apparently it is part of the tb industry but not for every mare. There is one mild article from the horse.com and then of course all the rescue sites.

The race horse industry doesn’t allow AI or therefore surrogate mares.

As Texarkana noted above, nope on this. Is it not part of the TB industry any more than any other “industry”. TB broodmares raise their own foals. They may be temporarily separated to breed the mare but that is usually a very short period of time as the breeding is live cover so mare and stallion are generally in fairly close proximity.

Nursemares only if the mare is unable to care for her own foal (usually because the mare is deceased.)

There have been occasions where a pregnant TB mare has even raced…
Just because you find something via Google doesn’t mean it’s accurate

[CHT]

We knew people who bred TBs that DID use nurse mares from a nurse mare farm for their TB mares because some stallion farms will not allow the mares to come with foal at side and their farm was too far away to haul the mare back and forth. I don’t know the numbers, but it definitely is (was) part of the TB breeding industry. I don’t think they concerned themselves with what happened with the foal, but their nursemares definitely did not nurse two foals.

[Texarkana]

If mares ever were regularly replaced from their foals, it was WELL before my lifetime.

As someone who has accompanied tons of TB mares to the breeding shed, I have NEVER experienced a farm that said “no foals.” In breeding hubs like central KY, the mares are all in close proximity to the stallions. They van over to the stallion from their home location. Baby usually comes and stays on the van with a groom; mom is done being covered in minutes. Sometimes baby stays home in the stall while mom is gone for an hour or so.

In regional programs, the farms are usually more spaced out, and also the stallions and mares tend to reside on the same property. The mares more frequently get boarded where they will be breeding, and breeding is even easier because you just walk them across the property. These farms usually foal out horses as well, so I can’t understand why they would ever say “no foal.” If they aren’t boarded there, they van over from their home location like in KY and the process is the same.

Regional programs are not nearly the $ draw that KY is; I find it hard to believe breeders would go through the expense and inconvenience of a nurse mare when they have an otherwise healthy and lactating mare. Last nurse mare contract I saw was $3k for the season. Spending that much on a foal who’s not worth much more seems utterly ludicrous. Owning your own band of nurse mares for a regional program seems equally ridiculous; that’s double the mares to sustain.

[oldernewbie]

I’m in Ohio, LCC is in Ohio, I’ve visited, I used to contribute.I have every reason to believe those of you who work in the TB industry that say what LCC says is a bunch of horse manure. But here’s what I honestly don’t understand - who in the world is breeding grade horse to foal in January and February in such numbers? And why?

I just can’t make sense of why she has all these foals. it’s not like anyone would make any money just breeding them for her to adopt out at $300 a crack. So if it’s not for nurse mares, why???

[demidq]

Is there still a PMU industry? That used to be a huge source of poorly bred foals, tho why they would be taken off the mares as newborns I am not sure.

[Scribbler]

@oldernewbie

I’m in Ohio, LCC is in Ohio, I’ve visited, I used to contribute.I have every reason to believe those of you who work in the TB industry that say what LCC says is a bunch of horse manure. But here’s what I honestly don’t understand - who in the world is breeding grade horse to foal in January and February in such numbers? And why?

I just can’t make sense of why she has all these foals. it’s not like anyone would make any money just breeding them for her to adopt out at $300 a crack. So if it’s not for nurse mares, why???

Are they PMU foals? But if they were why not say so and be outraged about that?

[Texarkana]

I don’t doubt there is an unscrupulous poor man’s nurse mare farm somewhere nearby who happily dumps their foals off on LCC instead of dealing with them. I also don’t doubt maybe there is an old, loony breeder in the region who really does pull all his foals off his mares for some wacky reason, and again has no problem ditching the foals with the rescue. I have heard that they actively seek out foals to purchase of any origin, but can not substantiate that hearsay.

Wherever their foals are coming from, I cannot stand LCC repeatedly vilifies the entire nurse mare and thoroughbred breeding industries. They paint this ugly picture of what they perceive to be the “norm,” when 2 minutes of fact checking on Google will give you a wealth of information otherwise. And their rebuttals when experienced people called out on their misinformation include quips like, “no, you’re the one who is wrong!”

Why not lobby to end the practice of impregnating nurse mares and instead promote drug-induced lactation? But instead, they use their resources to crowdfund films that have as much truth in them as Star Wars. :rolleyes:

[EKLay]

See, I’m in complete agreement, but the emotional argument side has nice simple infographics that are winning. People apparently don’t read even a few short lines of facts.

It was interesting though, the number of people that came out of the woodwork with massive walls of text when I pointed out the problem with not knowing where these foals are coming from. Yes, these here right now need homes. BUT, if you don’t know where they’re coming from and can’t address the true source of the problem, it’s never going to stop. Wouldn’t a rescue want it to stop?

I’m beginning to suspect less scrupulous rescues don’t actually want things to get better because then they’d be out of jobs.

[Angela_Freda]

@EKLay

See, I’m in complete agreement, but the emotional argument side has nice simple infographics that are winning. People apparently don’t read even a few short lines of facts.

It was interesting though, the number of people that came out of the woodwork with massive walls of text when I pointed out the problem with not knowing where these foals are coming from. Yes, these here right now need homes. BUT, if you don’t know where they’re coming from and can’t address the true source of the problem, it’s never going to stop. Wouldn’t a rescue want it to stop?

I’m beginning to suspect less scrupulous rescues don’t actually want things to get better because then they’d be out of jobs.

And they like wearing a halo, even if it’s fake and the luster on it is spray painted on.

Anyone who knows anything about breeding is aware that mares in the TB industry ship pregnant to the farm of the next stud they will be bred to, foal out there, and are bred back with foal at their side [not necessarily literally]… unless they are able to be at ‘home’ and ship to the next stud and back without having to be boarded at the stallions farm.
You have to think about all these conundrums from a business POV… these farms would lose BIG revenue if everyone simply slapped the foal on a nursemare and the dam could ship wherever she needed to go without the foal… boarding, weaning, all the care involved in having that mare and foal on the farm of the next years stud is a HUGE income that these farms do not want to do without.

AI and surrogacy would solve some problems in the TB industry, but IMO it would create far bigger ones, including overbreeding that we do not need to encourage.

There are, unfortunately, too many who don’t know what they don’t know about the industry to see the flaws in this false narrative… and the ‘rescues’ do not want to enlighten them either. Keeping your supporters ‘dumb’ pays better.

[red_mares]

@EKLay

I’m beginning to suspect less scrupulous rescues don’t actually want things to get better because then they’d be out of jobs.

That can be applied to any number of charities. I feel the same way about the major veteran advocacy groups. Funny how they seem to be against any proposal to improve the VA. If the VA bureaucracy is pared down, it limits the need for the non-profit vet advocate bureaucracy. Funny how that works.

[caffeinated]

@demidq

Is there still a PMU industry? That used to be a huge source of poorly bred foals, tho why they would be taken off the mares as newborns I am not sure.

They wouldn’t be. There would be no financial incentive or reason to do so, as they can’t collect the urine until the mares are re-bred and hormones reach certain levels anyway.

I don’t remember the specific ‘rescues’ that used to do this, but there were several a while back who would sell bunches and bunches of “PMU” farms that were actually from farms that either weren’t in the industry at all or who had lost their contracts but continued to breed. I tend to view LCC with a skeptical eye largely because of what I found out while researching how to buy my own PMU foal (who came direct from a reputable farm, not through a rescue).

[Scribbler]

Good point about the PMU mares. The babies would be up for sale as weanlings.

Is it possible to research the provenance of the LCL foals? How young are they really? For the nurse mare story to be plausible they would be bottle feeding new borns. Really?

[oldernewbie]

@Scribbler

Good point about the PMU mares. The babies would be up for sale as weanlings.

Is it possible to research the provenance of the LCL foals? How young are they really? For the nurse mare story to be plausible they would be bottle feeding new borns. Really?

Yes, they are feeding newborns, altho not bottle feeding. They bucket feed. I have seen the foals myself and they are very young, as in less than a month old young. They maintain that some are preemies from mares that are induced so that the mare can go on duty. Regardless, they are nowhere near weaning age.

I think it’s interesting that there are no foals available at this moment. Usually they are in full swing in January. Did the source go belly up? Very hard to know.

I have other reasons to be skeptical about them, but have never been able to square the argument that there is no nurse mare industry with the large number of young foals that LCC had. (See post above.) Those foals came from somewhere and certainly weren’t bred with the idea of raising riding horses. It’s a mystery.