Horses and Hot Flashes

Menopause and Mare Urine

Menopause is Cruel to Mares

Say “No” to Pee Cups

Urine with Your Morning Coffee

Take Action

Menopause Is Cruel to Mares                                                   Back to Top

For many human females, menopause can be quite a trial. Dripping wet from brow to toe, restless and unable to sleep, prone to irritable mood swings—the aging process can be pretty difficult. It is even worse for female horses. Though they may not go through menopause, they suffer nonetheless.

Pregnant mare urine (PMU) is one of the ingredients in a vast majority of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drugs, such as Premarin® and PremPro®. Such drugs were popular in both the United States and abroad to help women control the symptoms of menopause. Then, in early 2000, studies revealed these drugs were more injurious to women’s health than supportive of it. General use of HRT drugs dropped dramatically. As a result, many PMU farmers dumped their mares at auction as they could no longer turn a profit. Many of these horses found their way to slaughterhouses.

Today, pregnant mare urine is still being collected and used in the manufacture of drugs purportedly designed to help prevent osteoporosis.

Say “No” to Pee Cups                                                              Back to Top

PMU farming began in the early 1940s thanks to chemists who found hormones in pregnant mare urine could be used to create HRT drugs. To collect urine, mares are forced to stand with rubber collection tubes affixed between their legs. They are tethered into their stalls, typically as small as 3½’ wide and 8’ long in a way that does not allow them to move around or lie down, spending six of their eleven months of pregnancy so confined all the while growing larger as their foals develop. They are hooked up to “pee” lines (pouches attached over the urethra to catch the mare’s urine). The constant standing with an ever enlarging body causes problems with their hooves, legs, and back. They get little if any veterinary care.

Mares are eventually turned out to pasture to give birth. They are allowed to nurse their foals for a few short months. Then, they are impregnated and the cycle starts all over again. Once they are no longer able to carry a foal to term, they are sent to auction and most likely on to slaughter.

PMU farms, found mostly in western Canada and northern United States, are pretty much self-regulated. Although a recommended code of practices does exist for the industry, there is little oversight of these farms and adherence to the code is strictly voluntary.

Urine with Your Morning Coffee                                                Back to Top

While the mares are given adequate food, their water intake is monitored. The less water they drink, the more concentrated their urine becomes. The purpose is to collect the highest concentration of estrogen possible from each mare, making each collection bucket more profitable for the PMU farmer. Giving mares too much drinking water dilutes their urine, producing less estrogen, therefore less profit.

Female foals are often kept on PMU farms to replace their mothers when they are spent. Male foals, of course, are useless to the trade and may be sold at auction from where they may be sent to slaughterhouses. Female foals who cannot be used go to auction/slaughter as well.

All of this is done to produce a medication that is supposed to take care of human female discomfort during a normal change of life process. Menopause is not a disease, but a living process. For the mares, being hooked up to pee lines is an unnatural process that ends in early death. A horse’s normal lifespan is between 20-30 years; a PMU horse’s lifespan is eight to ten years at which time she is no longer considered good stock. And her male foals’ lifespan is possibly only months.

If you are not sure you are taking pregnant mare urine, just break a pill open. You will know by the smell. Causing suffering and death to mares and their foals to ingest the urine of a living, breathing, sentient being cannot be a good reason for seeking comfort during menopause.

Take Action to Help End the Misery of PMU Horses

What can you do to change what is happening to female horses? First, if you are currently taking HRT or osteoporosis drugs, determine if the drug you are taking is made with pregnant mare urine. If it is, ask your physician for alternative drugs that are plant-based rather than animal-based. Other humane actions include:

• Talk to your sisters in menopause and let them know of your decision to reject HRT or osteoporosis drugs made from pregnant mare urine.
• Adopt a PMU foal or adult horse if you have the knowledge and means to care for one.
• In general, educate yourself about any medication you are taking—not just the risks to you but the risks to any animal involved in the production of the drug.

December 2009                                                                                Back to Top