Has anyone else heard about this? Just saw an article about it mentioned on another group. Here's a link and a quote from the article:

http://www.saratogian.com/site/news.cfm?...17708&rfi=6

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Heather Evans' crusade to save thousands of horses from slaughter took her through Saratoga County Thursday and today; she is only about 150 miles into her 2,400-mile cross-country journey to get the pharmaceutical company Wyeth to reverse its recent no-sale-to-rescuers policy.

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Wyeth produces the estrogen replacement therapy drug Premarin, which is made from the urine of continuously pregnant mares. The number of foals born in the process is estimated at as many as 30,000. Although rescuers manage to save several thousand horses every year, the company recently stopped allowing rescue groups to purchase the horses, Evans said.

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Wyeth public relations staff did not return calls for comment Thursday.

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Yes, I heard about this and think it is absolutely criminal of Wyeth. My yearling was probably a PMU baby (rescued from North Dakota, big PMU ranch state) and to think that if they had done this a year ago she wouldn't have been saved and just slaughtered. Makes me so angry that I just don't even have the words for it. Hopefully if enough people put enough pressure on Wyeth they will get their heads out of their @$$es and let rescue groups come in and take the unwanted mares and foals.

This is the first time I had heard about it. Makes no sense to me why they made that decision. And Wyeth isn't talking about it. Why should they care if rescues buy the foals? I'm sure the foals have a much better odds with the rescues than the do with the auction houses.

My question is why does Wyeth have any say in who the foals get sold to? They get their premarin, so what does it matter to them where the foals end up? I don't see what they gain by not allowing rescuers to buy the foals?

Yes, at least with the rescues they have a fighting chance of growing up and being adopted out to loving homes. My yearling ended up at auction and sold to a fur/tannery and was within days of being slaughtered for her skin when noticed by a rescue group.

Wyeth's reasoning, last I heard, was that so many foals being out there were bad publicity.

It seems to me that having thousands of foals and worn out mares going off to slaughter is bad publicity...

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It seems to me that having thousands of foals and worn out mares going off to slaughter is bad publicity...

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Amen to that!! Well said.

According to New York Horse Rescue, they aren't permitted to sell directly to feed lots or kill buyers, either. NYHR has posted the following on their mare/foal web page:

"FOR INFORMATION ON THE 2006 FOALS PLEASE VISIT www.BUTLER-FARM.COM


PMU ranchers (under contract with Ayerst) are no longer allowed to sell their horses (foals, etc.) to a rescue organization, such as NYHR. They are also not permitted to sell to feed lots, kill buyers or at a livestock sale where there will be kill buyers. PMU ranchers are now only permitted to sell their horses at sanctioned auction sales.


NYHR will work with several former PMU ranchers that have lost their contracts with Ayerst. These former PMU ranchers are not subject to any ‘selling’ restrictions and are in the process of reducing their herds of unneeded mares, foals, etc. The horses listed below are part of the herd of horses of a former PMU rancher that are in need of being rescued."

If you want to see the whole page: http://nyhr.org/foal.html

Going there now. Thanks for the links!

Sure are alot of people that jump to conclusions and get worked up without knowing a thing about the situation.

Care to enlighten them/us?

OMG that's terrable, my boy Cosmo is a PMU!

They don't want the foals going to slasughter in Can. nor to the rescues that have no clue how to care or house a foal. Therefore they now will only let them be sold at approved sales or private treaty to cut back on them ended up with someone who isn't going to give them a chance.

Thanks for filling me in.

It sounds as if, by limiting sales, they are going to have trouble keeping up with the volume.

I would think that the rescues were fulfilling a need to hold the excess horses while finding adoption homes for them.

Not all rescues are "bad places" and many of them have championed the cause of the PMU foals.

Voluam is way down now that they cut way back on numbers. And very true some resues are great but then some are very poor also. Theres a sales company 40 miles from here that has a PMU sale every fall with 2 to 3 hundred head. Every year theres so many that buy and have no clue what to do with foals. I've seen some get turned into pastures and night and run through fences, some get turned in with full size horses and get beat up bad, some get hit by cars. These foals aren't halter broke and many times the people and resues don't even know how to halter break them. There going to see if this will help eleminate those problems. The future? Who knows they may drop this and go back to selling to anyone.