So I was watching a show on NetGeo that ended up brining up the topic of Nurse Mare farms in thoroughbred racing. Now I don't know a whole lot about this topic yet but I'm curious as to what others thing about it here.

So..

How do you feel about Nurse Mare Farms?
Are they OK?
Are they necissary to the business of horse racing or could we do without them?
Where do we draw the line with these kinds of businesses?
Do you feel this brings pregnancy complications to the prized mares that are being bred as often as possible?

They sound a lot like PMU farms to me..which I can see both sides of the fence with those farms as well. I'm curious as to the kinds of regulations they have though? Are they same? Is this even a "known" business? This show was the first time I had heard of nurse mare farms, although I have heard of PMU farms, since I have done multiple informative speeches defending both sides of that issue. Is it really more of a "behind the scenes"...or "under the table" practice? It just seems sad but I'm sure every farm is run differently, but with the same basic principles.

So..Discuss!

All I can give you is our experience with PMU foals. We got two a few years ago. One was a clydesdale, belgian, thoroughbred cross and the other was thoroughbred, belgian, trakhener.

One was injured at the drop farm when she went through the fence. These things are not handled at all and are basically as wild as mustangs. She got a sweeney shoulder and we had to take to UGA where they charged us 500 bucks and told us lock her up for 6 months and it might heal. It didn't. So we thought, let's let her out on the hills and see if that works. It did. She healed.

The second one came so full of worms it almost died. Again we went to UGA and 2 grand later, he was ok.
When they grew up, they were the ugliest, weirdest horses you ever saw. They each looked like 3 different mismatched breeds put together, which they were.

They stick the mares in a stall, tied up and hooked to a milking machine. They use the milk to make estrogen drugs for women. The mares get little time out of those stalls. And the end result is a bunch of wild, mutt horses. It's just not worth it in my estimation.

They do have some purebred farms where you can get nice, registerable babies. Still, I don't think it's fair to the mares.

We sold ours as backyard pets. I wouldn't do it again.

As for nurse mares, I know nothing about that. It's one thing to let them physically nurse and care for the foals, it's another to chain them to a machine.

Basically, the way i understand it is, thoroughbred race horse breeders will take their prized mares, breed them, and pull the foal off them and give them to a "nurse mare". These nurse mares are bred, they foal, and the foals are taken off them around 1 month or so and the "prized foal" is put on these mares, so racings, prized mares, are bred again. They want as many foals out of those mares as possible. Very similar to PMU farms in the sense that these "nurse mares" are bred solely so that they will produce milk for these new foals they will be caring for. I've seen many photos showing that these mares are usually in fair-poor condition with a suckling on them basically 24/7 but like I said..it could very well be the "bad portrayal hype" against these farms. i have never experienced one personally. I'm just curious as to what others think and what they know.

Thanks for sharing though! Very interesting! PMU farms have always been interesting me, hence the reason why so many informational and/or persuasive speeches about them for various classes, projects, etc. Bravo to you!

I just recently read an article that hopefully will mean the end of nurse mare farms as they currently function. It basically described a way to use drugs, including domperidone, to bring in milk in non-bred mares. They had something like a 90% success rates in mares that had produced at least one foal previously. It's a win/win as far as I'm concerned because rescue mares can be used as the new nurse mares and no new, unwanted foals have to be produced.

I know my facts are lacking here, as I can't remember the specifics. I believe it was in Equus and I'll try to find the article again. It really excited me that it could change the way things currently are done, which I find far from ideal. However, I haven't personally seen a nurse mare farm in operation either.

ETA: Whoo hoo! There's an article about it online. It's at The Horse, so you have to register to read it, but it is free. It's well worth registering with them anyway, as I've found them to have some of the best, up to date articles around.

Anyway check out: Drug Protocol Turns Rescue Mares into Nurse Mares.

So, in answer to one of the original questions, NO, I don't think traditional nurse mare farms are a necessary evil. I certainly hope more farms will change to this modern method.

I think the PMU farms use the pregnant marese urine not hook her up to a milker for her milk.

Yes PMU farms need the urine...they use it in common HRT for woman like Premarin.

EH..that's really interesting! I was wondering if they had some kind of drug they could use vs. breeding out all these babies and pulling them off so very young. Especially since these babies flood auctions and resuces don't have resources for all of them!

Oh thank you for posting the link! I'm going to read it now! :)

INnboth the foal is a by-product and is usually not taken care of. I know some rescues that get the foals from the nurse mare at a day or two old. So it may depend on when the mare is needed.

I have a PMU that I got as a yearling he is 6 now and is a full QH from a registered sire and dam. When I got my baby he was skinny and had worms but otherwise healthy. I think like all businesses some cared more about the horses and how they were treated than others. Mine came from a working cow ranch and the PMU business was a side business. I understood they collected the urine until they foaled then they were out on pasture untill they weaned. Of course in the meantime they were bred again.

I know a Nurse mare farm in Ocala. The mares are NOT hooked to anything. They have two or three foals they feed and the foals also get milk replacer and feed.

A friend of mine's mare lost her foal and we took the mare to the nurse mare farm to see if she would allow a foal that wasn't hers to nurse. She about tried to kill it so it was a no go. She would have killed it if the three of us were not there.

Not every mare will allow a strange foal to nurse. The ones that will are worth their weight in gold. The woman running the farm I went to took excellent care of her nurse mares. They were not just standing in a stall 24/7 feeding babies. The nurse mare is to give the foal a life as close to possible as what they would have had if they had their own mom with them. When not nursing or being fed, they were in nice little grassy turnouts playing with other foals.

It is not possible to force a mare to feed a foal and it's way too much work to milk one. Maybe some people do it, but this farm doesn't. Only mares willing to take an orphan are used there and I found it a great little establishment.

I can see you know next to nothing about PMU farms. One, they don't use milk, they use the urine, so no milking machines. The mares are only in the stalls for the winter months, and are handwalked daily for exercise. Not much wrong with a nice warm barn in the north country winters. Spring and summers are spent out to pasture, having and raising foals, and pasture breeding. Yes, some farms were breeding less than ideal foals, but the smarter ones soon stopped that practice, since they found out they could get more for good ones. I've raised 6 of them, all Percherons but one, which was a Belgian, and picked some of them up right at the farm where they were born.

Fortunately, Premarin the hormone made from the pregnant mare urine is on its way out as a hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women. At its peek there were 75,000 unwanted PMU foals in the US and Canada a year, only about 20% of those got adopted the rest going to slaughter. I believe there are only a couple PMU farms left in the US. I recently adopted a 3 year old PMU paint that can be registered. After about 20 years the 'pee-farmers' realized they could make a couple extra bucks if they started breeding for quality.

As for nurse mares, I pray the drug really works in the real world and is accepted by breeders. I visit a web-site often that does nurse mare foal rescue and it is heartbreaking. Last year I believe they had about 140 nurse mare foals go through their farm. Most of them are between 1-5 days old upon arrival. Some of them are premies, mothers were induced because she was 'needed' I have learned that foals do not develop outside of the womb. Most often they do not survive. Granted that is a rare occurrence but it does happen.

If you ever see a leather product made out of 'pony skin' don't get it... it's not from a pony...

Just more proof that greed sucks.

Since Thoroughbred breeding is only via live cover and no embryo transfer, "as many foals out of those mares as possible" equals one per year. Same as the wild horses. If you want "as many foals as possible", look to the other breeds where you have 3 or 4 foals per year per mare thanks to embryo transfer.



I've worked with nurse mares before and let me tell you they are some of the most pampered, docile mares out there. They HAVE to be, given their job in life. Yes, they are bred annually so there is a "foal crop", but every nurse mare farm I've dealt with are experts at raising orphans. Mares in fair to poor condition??? HARDLY!!! Poor conditioned mares don't lactate. These girls are typically OVERconditioned. And the poor mare "with a suckling on them basically 24/7"...how is this different than any other mare with a foal at side?

The biggest problem I have with nurse mare farms is that often times they have to be returned to the farm in foal, which means any stallion will do. A lot of times, the teaser stallions that otherwise don't get to breed are given the honors. I'd certainly prefer to see a little more discretion into what offspring are being produced.

Keep in mind that even though domperidone may work, the hard part is grafting a foal onto a nurse mare. Take any Rescue Jane and try to force a foal on her and she may very well attempt to kill it. Lactating does not equal maternal behavior. These nurse mares have a job for a reason....they'll accept the foals willingly.

Yes, you are correct. I meant urine. But I've also read that some don't lead a nice life in the stalls. And I believe they spend a significant amount of time hooked to a machine to collect it.

But the biggest objection I have is the quality and health of the foals. We used a reputable organization and some people got some very sick babies, particularly from one farm. They blamed the worms on a very rainy foaling season, but I just don't see that as a valid excuse. They just have so many foals that they cannot keep up with the care. Not to mention the conformational nightmares that a lot of these foals turned out to be.

I hope the domperidone proves effective. We just don't need any more potentially unwanted horses. I did hear that a lot of these farms have closed down.

CVM i did state that these images and portrayals are usually the "oh the poor horse" bit..I'm not niave or ignorant. I'm simply curious. I never said "oh that poor mare" not once..and following that I said i'm sure these are the " 'bad portrayal hype' against these farms". Same with the "fair-poor conditions" statement...same "bad hype" against the farms. I've argued both sides of PMU farms...which can easily be said for these farms too. I'm simply curious as to others opinions and looking for information. I already stated that i'm probably getting "misinformed" so i'm here for an open mind. So thanks.

Cvm - did you check out the article? There's a lot more to it than domperidone.

Here's a quote:
Walnut Hall used a simplified drug protocol based on a once-a-day administration of an oral domperidone gel (a dopamine antagonist which increases milk production in mares and is also used to combat fescue toxicity). "If they're going to lactate, you'll know within three to four days, usually," Lyman said. "They'll start producing watery milk, and you'll see the bag start to fill. Most mares were in decent milk production within 10 days." Twenty of the 22 mares responded to the lactation protocol. When it came time to introduce the foster foals, Walnut Hall administered a shot of oxytocin and prostaglandin to each mare, along with some mild sedation. This was followed by a vaginal/cervical massage, which Daels had found to be key to stimulating a maternal response.

"It was pretty neat," Lyman said. "Within a couple of minutes of doing the cervical massage, the mares would lower their heads and start nickering to the foal. It's a response called the Ferguson reflex. Sixteen of the 20 mares accepted their foals within half an hour, and the longest (time period) was a day. All 20 mares had accepted their foals within 24 hours. If you've dealt with nurse mares, you know that's an amazing success rate."


I realize that this is just one study, with a fairly small sample, but it seems that success rates are at least similar if not better than with traditional nurse mares.

Here's a blog discussing how a similar, though seemingly more drug intensive method, that was used for a rejected foal. Granted, this mare was willing to accept the foal before any drugs were administered, so that wasn't an issue here.


I don't dispute that from what little I've seen and read that most nurse mares live a very good life. My big issue is with all those "extra" foals that are produced just so the mares will produce milk. It's the last thing we need in this already flooded market.

Um, not sure where you got your horses, or the information, but they do not use milk. They use urine, which is collected through a static drip system. The code of care (and these farms are inspected up to four times per month) requires the mares get time out of the stalls and most modern pmu farms do rotate their horses on and off the lines.

My horse is a PMU that I purchased direct from the farm, he came halter broke, with initial shots and was totally handle-able from day 1. The modern PMU farm is breeding for a real market - they have realized that it benefits them to produce a good quality horse and do things the right way.

If you got your foals from a "rescue" chances are they may not even be "pmu" foals but from large scale breeding operations that lost their PMU contracts as long as seven years ago. "rescues" like animali farm still sell horses for people like this, and the quality/handling of the babies seems to be quite a step down from actual modern production farms.

You can visit those farms through the NAERIC site at http://www.naeric.org

They have incentive programs for NAERIC horses and everything. PMU foals have gone on to compete in every discipline, with congress winners, and everything. My horse has a half brother (well.. sort of. same sire, which doesn't "really" count but whatever) who has competed for several years at Rolex. Hardly a wild mutt :)

AS for nurse mare farms, I think it's like PMU or anything else. You have some good, you have some bad. I think most people involved are doing their best to make sure that the foals produced are marketable and find homes. Even without the TB market, I think that nurse mares can serve a very valuable purpose.

Ditto to CVM. I've never been involved in PMU farms, so I can't comment there, but I did work with nurse mares while in Kentucky. We ALWAYS tried to keep the birth mom with her foal. But some mares never would tolerate their foals nursing, despite our best efforts, and we'd use a nurse mare. We also used them when the mare died after birth. The nurse mares looked great, were easy to handle, and made great moms. I've got a picture of a herd of mares and foals racing in one of the pastures... with the big nurse mares bringing up the rear, way behind all the thoroughbreds, LOL.

Often since the mares had to be returned re-bred, they were bred to young stallions coming in... often as the test breed to see if the stallion was interested in covering a mare... and also to give him some "practice" on a calm, mare who knows the program. The nurse mare foals sold very well to sport horse people, so they babies (at least in this case) were not "throw aways" by any means.

Goldentoes, I did correct myself about meaning urine. I had nurse mare in my head when I wrote that post and had milk on the brain. It's good to know they get time out. As for the static drip, that's the machine I was talking about. I don't even pretend to know anything about it except what I read before we got the foals.

I got my foals from a place called foal train and the foals were involved with naeric. I don't even know if foal train even exists anymore. They were sweet foals once they were gentled, but they looked all wrong. Their front ends looked like one kind of horse, the middles looked like they were from another and the back ends another. It was comical really.

The only thing they were good for were as somebody's trail pet. That's what you get when you mix different breeds together though. It's a gamble as is breeding any horse.

As for foal train, we spent 2500 bucks on those foals fixing their problems plus the 500 each for the foals and the transportation. When I told them about the worms from L farm, they suggested that it was our fault! The pissed me off big time. Then others with L farm foals started having problems. No apology. Oh well, live and learn.

If I were to get back into horses at some point, I would probably look into PMUS as some of the purebreds are quite nice.

My Thoroughbred mare I used to have had false pregnancies and would produce milk and leak milk almost year round.

But I don't really like the idea of the nurse mare farms.

Yeah, foal train is gone.

Animali farm does sort of the same thing, but the horses they call PMUs are from mass breeding operations that really have nothing at all to do with PMU production at all. Farms that lost their contracts years ago.

One of the issues I had with groups like foal train is that by acting as a broker for the poor quality farms, they encouraged those poor quality farms to continue "business as usual" without making changes. So in that sense the "rescues" were providing NO incentive for those farms to breed better horses or practice better husbandry. There was a guaranteed outlet for the foals, so the farmers themselves didn't have to market them or train them or anything.

When Wyeth made all those big cutbacks, they culled out farms that had no marketing or reputable breeding program. They also said they'd take away the contracts of those farms that used rescues to place the babies - which some decried as awful, but really, it provided a financial incentive to do things right.

I would buy again from the farm I got Yoda from in a heartbeat, along with a few other programs I really like that produce the kind of horse I'm interested in.

Sorry this is off the nurse mare topic, I get really fired up about it though.

In many ways I wonder if lots of rescues fall into the trap the PMU rescues fell into - by providing an outlet for certain types of horses, they're not forcing the source of those horses to step up and do things better. I would be willing to bet there's a couple nursemare foal rescue places falling into that trap.

Interesting. That explains it. I'm glad foal train is gone. They sucked.

I follow the work of a rescue in Ohio that buys the foals from the farms that produce the nurse mares.
The way I understand it is, these foals are just the by product produced to obtain the mares to feed the Thoroughbred babies.
Some farms do take care of their own foals, but others have been known to just set them aside when their mothers leave and they die.
I can not comprehend why this is allowed to happen, but it does.
The rescue I speak of takes them in and bottle feeds and then bucket feed them milk replacer, then puts them up for adoption for a nominal fee.
I don’t believe this practice even compares to the foals at the PMU farms, because there, they are allowed to nurse and grow with their mothers.

Q Horse, not sure if your talking about the same place as I, Last Chance Corral? Victoria, awesome lady, and yes it is sad, sometimes the foals are taken off there mums and thrown aside, to let the "big $ foals" feed, she tries and saves as many foals as possible, sadly sometimes you can't save them all.